House Republicans Zeroing In On Big Tech Companies Connections With China
Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the Republican leader of the Energy and Commerce Committee, announced a new third pillar of the program that centers on China in a memo called “Big Tech Accountability Platform” sent out to Republican members of the committee.
“Earlier this year, I shared with you our ‘Big Tech Accountability Platform’ as a framework to bring much-needed reform and oversight to Big Tech. Our Platform currently focuses on two pillars: (1) Big Tech Responsibility and (2) Big Tech Power. Today, we are adding a third pillar: Big Tech and China,” wrote McNorris Rodgers in the memo.
McNorris Rodgers then went on to discuss four areas of policy and conduct review.
- American Information Flowing to China: McNorris Rodgers claimed that “Companies with deep ties to China raise significant concerns about China’s access to American information.” With this in mind, McNorris Rodgers presented potential “transparency obligations,” such as “Requiring companies to notify American users if those companies send, maintain, or store their personal information in China,” and “Requiring companies to notify American users if those companies are owned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a Chinese state-owned entity, or a non-state-owned entity located in China.”
- App Store Vetting: McNorris Rodgers argued that “Big Tech companies must do more to vet mobile applications available on their app stores for ties” to the Chinese government. “To address this concern,” McNorris Rodgers explained, “we will explore how Big Tech companies oversee apps on their platforms, including how they ensure apps meet their privacy and data security standards, how they review apps for direct or indirect ties to the CCP, and related matters.”
- Uighur Muslim Labor Concerns: Noting that “Over 1 million Uighurs have been reportedly interned by the Chinese government,” McNorris Rodgers said that it has been suggested that “some Big Tech companies may use suppliers linked to forced labor of Uighur Muslims.” McNorris Rodgers called for an exploration of the “processes Big Tech companies put in place to ensure Uighur Muslims and forced labor are not used to manufacture American products in China.”
- Counterfeit Goods: “Big Tech companies must do more to address the sale of counterfeit goods coming from China,” McNorris Rodgers posited, adding that “we will explore online marketplaces’ policies and practices for addressing counterfeit goods, including any additional scrutiny applied to sellers based in China.”
“We must ensure Americans’ information is protected from the CCP, and we expect American tech companies to do more to address the significant threat China poses to the U.S. Under this pillar, we will continue our work to ensure America leads the way,” McNorris Rodgers added.
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