Stop Big Tech!
Petition to President Biden and federal regulators:
We urge you to ban — not merely regulate — ownership of payment systems by the dominant tech platforms: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. Allowing these platforms to own proprietary rights to consumer financial data would empower Big Tech to expand its monopoly power and continue to crush small businesses. It would also put people’s private information at risk.
Big Tech is rapidly expanding its control over the payment systems we use to purchase goods and services. We can’t let tech giants Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google tighten their stranglehold on our economy.
Whoever controls payment systems — the part of the website that transmits your payment info to banks and other financial services — gets access to an extremely valuable commodity: consumer financial data. Information about what we buy, when, and where is a treasure trove. It helps Big Tech fine tune the targeted ads it feeds you, assess whether you pose a credit risk, and more.
Big Tech companies like Facebook use consumer financial data to become more profitable, expand its monopoly, buy more data — and the cycle continues.
Sign the petition: Federal regulators need to ban ownership of payment systems by the dominant tech platforms!
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is investigating this very issue right now.1 We need to make sure the CFPB hears from Americans who refuse to let their private financial information fall into the hands of big corporations — and who will not let Big Tech crush small businesses, exploit workers, and expand their monopolies.
Recent history has shown that when it comes to Big Tech, a regulatory approach doesn’t always go far enough. Facebook kept ignoring privacy laws even after repeated warnings from the government, resulting in a record-breaking $5 billion fine in 2019.2 The CFPB must ban Big Tech from owning payment systems.
Big Tech can’t be trusted to play by the rules when the financial reward for breaking the law is so high. Congress has already found that Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google all routinely engage in illegal monopoly behavior in order to squeeze out smaller competitors.3 And Big Tech will continue to consolidate its power unless federal regulators block the dominant platforms from gaining access to consumer financial data.
Sign the petition: The CFPB must block Big Tech from owning payment systems! The last thing we need is for Big Tech to have access to more of our personal information and more ability to influence our day to day lives.
Sources:
- Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, “CFPB Orders Tech Giants to Turn Over Information on their Payment System Plans,” October 21, 2021.
- Federal Trade Commission, “FTC Imposes $5 Billion Penalty and Sweeping New Privacy Restrictions on Facebook,” July 24, 2019.
- House Committee on the Judiciary, “Investigation of Competition in Digital Markets,” 2020.