On Tuesday, the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee held a hearing exploring the connection between antitrust issues and issues of data collection, use, and privacy. The hearing featured witnesses from Facebook and Google, but not TikTok, the most downloaded app since 2020 and one which has raised repeated data usage and privacy concerns. Senator Amy Klobuchar, who is expected to introduce antitrust legislation targeting Facebook and Google later this Congress, chaired the hearing.

“If more data really meant less competition, TikTok wouldn’t have just surpassed YouTube in watch time per user or beaten Facebook in downloads,” said Chamber of Progress CEO Adam Kovacevich. “The real question about data isn’t about how much you have, but what you do with it. It’s not the number of ingredients that matters, but the quality of the recipe.”

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Chamber of Progress (progresschamber.org) is a new center-left tech industry policy coalition promoting technology’s progressive future. We work to ensure that all Americans benefit from technological leaps, and that the tech industry operates responsibly and fairly.

Our corporate partners do not have a vote on or veto over our positions. We do not speak for individual partner companies and remain true to our stated principles even when our partners disagree.