Democrats on the US Home of Representatives subcommittee released a report Tuesday saying that online search, marketing, social networking, shopping, and others are the four biggest expertise companies used to take leading positions. Listed here are notable findings.
Amazon Problem: Amazon.com Inc. sells its individual merchandise in addition to items from unbiased retailers on the same platform. The Congressional report alleges that Amazon has “monopoly energy” over many of those retailers, which “would not be a separate viable option for Amazon to reach customers online.” The report alleges that the result is a “battle of curiosity,” through which Amazon is incentivized to use the knowledge of competing retailers and that may benefit its individual goods and companies.
Repair: The report recommends that Congress consider ending the fight by stopping major corporations — in this case, Amazon — from competing with others based on their infrastructure.
In response, Amazon said that any legislative proposal to separate retail gross sales from its third-party marketplace would relegate customers and sellers to an effigy they rejected as inconvenient. Amazon also refuted its dominance claims, saying that it is not the U.S. Represents less than 4% of retail. Apple
Problem: Lawmakers found that Apple has a monopoly on distributing software programs on the iPhone. Apple used that monopoly energy to cost builders above market costs in the form of a 30% fee on an app retailer’s gross sales, to weed out rival apps and companies, and to gain false knowledge from builders and competitors.
Used it to make companies and choices. A former employee of the app retailer told lawmakers that the app retailer pays an estimated $100 million a year to run Apple and generates billions of dollars in revenue.
Repair: Lawmakers’ proposals could prompt Apple to stop competing in markets where its rivals rely on its app retailer to acquire customers. While the report has few details on how such guidelines would work, in theory they could prompt Apple to pull out of major companies like streaming music, streaming TV and cloud storage. Another proposal to create guidelines against self-preference could hinder Apple’s means of weeding apps away from its own app retailer that competes with its own private companies. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Facebook problem: The panel found that FB has a monopoly power in the “social networking” market, which it separated from the market for additional content-focused social media products such as YouTube and TikTok.
FB gained dominance in that highly concentrated market by detecting nascent rivals and copying, buying or killing them before they mature into aggressive threats, the report said. Investigators said the company’s two biggest acquisitions, Instagram and WhatsApp, matched that sample. He also accused Fb of selectively enforcing its platform insurance policies to mitigate risk from the video-sharing app Vine, which Twitter shut down in 2016.
Repairs: The report closed in the need to recommend the breakdown of FB, although additional leeway was proposed to boost antitrust enforcers’ budgets and prevent firms from buying out rivals. This would strengthen the fingers of regulators in the current investigation into FB’s alleged anti-competitive practices and make future transactions difficult.
FB did not immediately comment. Google
The problem: Investigators found that Google used restrictive buyer and affiliate agreements and other means to ensure that search, cellphone and tablet software programs over these adversaries backed their private companies, expertise and mapping expertise. promotes. As an example, the committee inside a Google document said that high officials such as now-chief government Sundar Pichai, in the firm’s private words, allowed hardwired associates to verify Google Search, “entering and centering on mobile entities.” ” Was.
When a {hardware} manufacturer in 2014 complained about its units being overloaded with essential Google apps, Search Big blamed it for not making devices with the extra recall.
Repair: The committee referred for Congress to move nondiscrimination and bargaining legal guidelines that require large service suppliers like Google to offer true entry in their methods. Such a rule could give system makers, ad tech firms and app builders as much leg as they need to move from Google devices.
