The House Democrats' Subcommittee on Antitrust has finally released the results of their 16-month investigation into Apple, Amazon, the Facebook and Google.
The committee found that companies have monopoly power in the following areas:
Apple: in distributing software applications to Appliances iOS.
Amazon: more third party sellers and many suppliers.
Facebook: internet advertising and social networking.
Google: web search.
The committee proposes to Congress to adopt changes to antitrust laws that could lead to the separation of the divisions of the above companies.
In particular, the committee proposes the following actions:
- Enforcement of structural divisions and prohibition of dominant platforms owned by companies with neighboring lines. The chairman of the subcommittee, David Cicilline, referred to this method as a form of law "Glass-SteagallFor the Internet, referring to the law of the 1930s that separates commercial from investment value.
- Competition authorities assume that mergers by dominant platforms harm competition, shifting the burden on stakeholders to prove that their agreement will not harm competition, rather than law enforcement.
- To prevent dominant platforms from favoring their own services, instead of offering "equal terms for equal products and services".
- Require dominant companies to make their services compatible with competitors and allow users to transfer their data.
- Bypass any "problematic precedents" in antitrust law.
- Requirement from the Federal Trade Commission to collect data collection regularly.
- Increase budgets for the FTC's competition division and the Ministryof Justice.
- Strengthen private enforcement by eliminating mandatory arbitration clauses and limits.
The Republican committee members do not support all the measures, including the imposition of structural divisions, and will also publish a report on bias on online platforms.
The survey had about 1,3 million documents and is 450 pages long you can see (PDF) on CBCN.
The findings may affect her ongoing dispute Apple in the US from Epic, which accuses Apple of abusing its monopoly on distributing software on the iOS platform.
