Chronic. Boiling in Silicon Valley, California. After sixteen months of investigation into GAFA (Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple), the House of Representatives antitrust subcommittee issued its findings on October 6. A report drawn up after hundreds of hours of interviews with 240 players in the digital economy, after consulting “1,287,000 documents”, including internal emails from managers. And seven public hearings, including one – by videoconference – with the richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, and his ” co-accused “ Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai and Tim Cook (CEO of Facebook, Google and Apple respectively).
Antitrust historian Matt Stoller, who spent an entire day reading the text, was impressed. He who often criticizes the Democratic establishment for being quick to deal with big business (Barack Obama is not the last in his eyes), saw it as a major event likely to “Prelude to a major reorganization of the economy” american. “I’ve read a bunch of reports written by a bunch of global regulators, he wrote in his newsletter. This one is by far the clearest and the most aggressive ”.
The Cicilline subcommittee, named after its chairman Democrat David Cicilline of Rhode Island, says GAFAs are monopolies that abuse their dominant position: The Big Four alone have acquired more than 500 companies since 1998. they have “Too much power” that it is urgent to control. “Our economy and our democracy depend on it”, writes the commission which accuses the regulatory authorities, under Barack Obama as under Donald Trump, of having failed in their antitrust mission.
The report is not 450 pages for nothing. He goes into great detail on how the platforms have extended their sphere of influence. “Through a combination of lobbying and funding from think tanks and academics”. He also notes the intimidation and fear of reprisals that many small players in the sector have reported if they publicly testify to the predatory practices of Amazon and others.
In conclusion, the commission recommends, not only to dismantle the giants – the famous “ break up Dear to Elizabeth Warren and the Democratic left – but also to modernize the legislative arsenal antitrust, and to give back to citizens who consider themselves victims of monopolies the power to take legal action themselves.
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