Klobuchar Statement on House Judiciary Committee Report Detailing Big Tech Companies' Anticompetitive Behavior
Statement
U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) released the statement below after the House Judiciary Committee formally published a report entitled "Investigation of Competition in the Digital Marketplace: Committee Report and Recommendations," detailing Big Tech companies' anticompetitive behavior.
"We must pass legislation to put rules of the road in place for dominant tech companies. These documents expose the problem in black and white - these platforms use their dominance to unfairly disadvantage their rivals, all at the expense of competition and consumers. Given the track records of these companies, these revelations are shocking, but not surprising, and they only add to our growing momentum to take action."
The House Judiciary Committee report includes new documents reviewed by the Committee during the investigation, including internal Facebook documents showing the company views itself as dominant in the social networking market and insulated from competitive threats. Other newly released documents include Google internal communications demonstrating how it leverages its control over the Android mobile operating system to prevent smartphone manufacturers from introducing products or services that compete with Google's family of mobile apps. Newly released internal Amazon documents demonstrate how Amazon's abuses its dominance over e-commerce to coerce third-party sellers to purchase other services from Amazon, such as fulfillment and distribution.
Klobuchar leads the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, bipartisan legislation with Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to set commonsense rules of the road for major digital platforms to ensure they cannot unfairly preference their own products and services. In January, the bill passed the Senate Judiciary Committee by a bipartisan vote of 16-6, making it the first major bill on technology competition to advance to the Senate floor since the dawn of the Internet.
Source