Antitrust Legislators Slam Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect statements from Google and Apple. Antitrust watchdogs in the U.S. House of Representatives issued a report today proclaiming that Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook have abused their market power and called for government intervention. While these companies have delivered "clear benefits to society," it has "come at a price," legislators wrote. “To put it simply, companies that once were scrappy, underdog startups that challenged the status quo have become the kinds of monopolies we last saw in the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons,” the report continued. The 449-page report from the House Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust Subcommittee said that these firms “run the marketplace while also competing in it” and have become “unaccountable to anyone but themselves.” The committee’s investigation, which lasted for more than one year, found “evidence of monopolization and monopoly power” in each of the four companies. And while legislators highlighted those companies' reach as a whole in the digital marketplace, each was called out for individual abuses. Legislators said that Facebook “tipped the market” because “Facebook competes more vigorously among its own products—Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger—than with actual competitors.” The report also alleges that Facebook identified competitive threats to “acquire, copy, or kill” nascent firms. Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014. Google, the report said, maintained its monopoly in online search through “an aggressive campaign to undermine vertical search providers, which Google viewed as a significant threat.” Yelp, one of those competitors, testified against Google before Congress recently. According to the report, Amazon treated its own third-party sellers as “internal competitors,” legislators said, using their position to advantage themselves over those looking to sell products on their platforms. Apple, on the other hand, exercised monopoly power on its iOS operating system, the report said, “reducing quality and innovation among app developers, and increasing prices and reducing choices for consumers.” Apple and Google have recently sparred with Epic Games, makers of the popular game Fortnite, over what Epic claims is unfair practices in their app marketplace. Among the recommendations made in the report, legislators suggested examining the platforms’ businesses to further address anticompetitive behavior, new efforts to double down on merger and monopolization and restoring oversight of antitrust laws. "Americans simply don’t want Congress to break Google’s products or harm the free services they use every day," Google said in a statement. "The goal of antitrust law is to protect consumers, not help commercial rivals." In a statement, Apple claimed it "does not have a dominant market share in any category" and said the App Store "enabled new markets, new services and new products that were unimaginable a dozen years ago." Spokespeople for Amazon and Facebook have not returned a request for comment. "Until now, critical areas of the Internet have remained unregulated and unchecked, requiring the sort of dedicated investigation that the report reflects," said the Omidyar Network, a foundation and investment firm started by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, in a statement. "The potentially illegal market dominance of the largest technology platforms as well as their social and political power is seriously threatening our individual freedoms, workers’ rights, economies, and democracies." The subcommittee, chaired by Rep. David Cicilline, called the CEOs of each company—Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai—to testify in a hearing this summer. "Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google each serves as a gatekeeper over a key channel of distribution in the economy, allowing them to pick winners and losers," Cicilline tweeted following the report's release Tuesday. "They each abuse their power through exorbitant fees, oppressive contracts, and extracting valuable data." The report also comes as Attorney General William Barr is preparing to file suit against Google for antitrust violations, a process that’s reportedly been rushed so it can take place ahead of the November election. A coalition of attorneys general, led by Texas AG Ken Paxton, is also considering action against the internet search and advertising giant. The Save Journalism Project, a nonprofit advocacy group, further criticized the power the “tech giants” have had over the news industry in a statement, calling the report a “blueprint for action,” according to Laura Bassett, co-founder of the group. “The implementation of these recommendations cannot come soon enough for the journalism industry, which has been brought to the brink of collapse by the onslaught of the tech giants and the health and economic impact of the pandemic,” Bassett said. News Media Alliance president and CEO David Chavern called out specifically Google and Facebook in a statement for imposing "unfair terms” on news publishers. “These recommendations will help to correct the anticompetitive behavior of the platforms and force them to play by the rules,” Chavern added.

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Legislators Slam Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google for Abusing Market Power

A report offers a sweeping condemnation of the firms' place in the modern economy

Scott Nover

Sara Jerde

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Scott Nover

Sara Jerde