Asian Tech Press (Jan 21) -- The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved an antitrust bill targeting major technology companies including China's two largest social media companies, TikTok and Tencent's WeChat.

S. 2992, formally American Innovation and Choice Online Act, sponsored by Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar and Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, would prohibit the platforms involved from offering an advantage for their own products on their platforms.

In addition to ByteDance Ltd.'s popular short video app TikTok and Tencent's flagship social app WeChat, the antitrust bill also targets Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc.'s Google, Amazon Inc., Meta Platforms Inc. and other companies.

Following approval by the Senate Judiciary Committee, the bill is further awaiting consideration by the full Senate.

Bloomberg reported that one of the amendments passed by the committee would address how data is shared with China, Chinese-controlled companies or other foreign adversaries.

Another amendment adds criteria to the definition of covered platforms to include companies with annual net sales of $550 billion or one billion users worldwide, which could include platforms like TikTok.

The bill gives the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Justice Department the authority to determine which companies will be included in the criteria. Asked whether the new standard would apply to Chinese social media giants like TikTok and Tencent's WeChat, Klobuchar said, "We'd have to look at how it applies."