Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), who ended Wednesday’s hearing by saying some Big Tech companies need to be broken up, told Axios that Facebook in particular lacks significant competitors and should not have been allowed to buy Instagram and WhatsApp.
Why it matters: Cicilline chairs the antitrust subcommittee, which has been looking into competition issues in the digital space.
“Mr. Zuckerberg acknowledged in this hearing that his acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram were part of a plan to both buy a competitor and also maintain his money, power, or his dominance. That’s classic monopoly behavior.”
— Cicilline said on the “Axios Re:Cap” podcastCicilline’s criticisms weren’t limited to Facebook, pointing to the power Google and Amazon also hold in their respective markets.
- “I think what we saw today was confirmation that these large technology platforms have enduring monopoly power,” he said in the interview with Axios’ Dan Primack.
The big picture: A key issue remains whether existing antitrust law is broad enough to address the modern tech industry, especially companies that provide their products at no direct charge to consumers.
- “Congress is going to have to ‘think outside the box’ in a comprehensive way about what antitrust laws should look like in the 21st century,” Neguse told Axios’ Ashley Gold after the hearing.
What’s next: The committee plans to develop a set of recommendations and issue them in a final report as soon as late August, according to Cicilline.
You can listen to the podcast here.
Source: Top antitrust Democrat: There’s a case to break up Facebook – Axios
The antitrust session was quite bizarre – the CEOs were running with canned lines which made no sense in their context, they were stumbling, they refused to answer questions, even those which were favorible to their cause. Only one senator was clearly in the pocket of the big tech, the rest were firmly against. One male senator thought Google was targetting him personally and one male couldn’t understand why fake news sites didn’t get high search rankings and were banned by Facebook. It was a laugh if these companies didn’t wield such power. They raised almost all the points I raised in my talk last year.
Robin Edgar
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