After a 15-month investigation, the House Antitrust Subcommittee concluded on Tuesday that tech giants Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google have engaged in anticompetitive business practices including "acting as gatekeepers, stifling competition, charging 'exorbitant' fees and eroding democracy." According to Associated Press business writer Marcy Gordon:
"The investigation found, for example, that Google has monopoly power in the market for search, while Facebook has monopoly power in the social networking market. The report said Amazon and Apple have 'significant and durable market power' in the U.S. online retail market, and in mobile operating systems and mobile app stores, respectively."
"In addition to proposing separations of some dominant tech platforms from the companies’ other businesses, the report also calls for the platforms to be required to offer equal terms for equal products and services for all users. It proposes laws be changed to impose a higher bar for approving future tech industry mergers and acquisitions.
"And it asks Congress to boost the enforcement powers of antitrust regulators, such as the Federal Trade Commission, and to increase the budgets of the FTC and the Justice Department's antitrust division."
The proposals outlined by Democratic lawmakers in the report could be seen by some as a taste of what they would enact should they take control of the Senate and Joe Biden win the presidential election. In fact, Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI), the subcommittee chair, said back in August that, regarding the issues with these tech companies outlined in the report, "Joe Biden is the person to fix it." However, Biden has barely spoken about the issue, and on the rare occasion he has, he has stated he would "consider" enforcing antitrust laws on these companies.
Despite Democratic lawmakers' optimism that Biden would support their efforts to rein in the power of Big Tech, the former vice president's refusal to commit to doing do should not come as a surprise, as he has raked in several large individual donations from high-ranking officials associated with the aforementioned companies.
From Amazon, Biden's campaign has taken $5,600 each from vice president Babak Parviz and general counsel David Zapolsky, who have additionally contributed $50,000 and $250,000 to the Biden Victory Fund. From Apple, his top donor is executive Douglas Beck, who has contributed $5,600 each to his campaign and victory fund. Meanwhile, the Democratic nominee has raked in $2,800 each from Facebook vice presidents Shahriar Rabii and Michael Verdu, as well as $18,500 from Google vice president Vint Cerf ($4,900 to his campaign, and $13,600 to his victory fund).
Despite the bipartisan investigation, Republican subcommittee members released their own report disagreeing with many of the Democrats' findings. Their "report alleged that Google and Facebook censored conservative content and decried the Democrats for declining to look into Twitter," according to Irina Ivanova of CBS News, "which has also been accused of having an anticonservative bias."
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