Senators introduce bipartisan bill to rein in Apple, Google app stores

A bipartisan trio of senators introduced a bill that would rein in app stores of companies they said exert too much market control, including Apple and Alphabet Inc’s Google.

Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota teamed up with Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee to sponsor the bill, which would bar big app stores from requiring app providers to use their payment system. It would also prohibit them from punishing apps that offer different prices or conditions through another app store or payment system. “I found this predatory abuse of Apple and Google so deeply offensive on so many levels,” Blumenthal said in an interview Wednesday. “Their power has reached a point where they are impacting the whole economy in stifling and strangling innovation.”