Amazon has “too much power” which “must be reined in” according to a bombshell congressional report which threatens to force big tech to break up.
Yesterday the US House of Representatives antitrust subcommittee released a landmark 449-page report on the “tremendous power” wielded by Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook, accusing each of them of abusing their positions.
The damning report, which is the result of a 16-month investigation into the tech giants, proposes an overhaul of US competition law which would represent the most significant assault on corporate power in modern history.
Should the proposed legislation be passed, sweeping new antitrust laws would be brought in preventing tech companies from owning different lines of business, forcing them to structurally separate.
“Their ability both to use their dominance in one market as negotiating leverage in another, and to subsidize entry to capture unrelated markets, have the effect of spreading concentration from one market into others, threatening greater and greater portions of the digital economy,” the report said.
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This would prevent tech giants using their dominance in one area to squash rivals in another, a tactic of which Amazon has been regularly accused.
The report continued: “By controlling access to markets, these giants can pick winners and losers throughout our economy.
“They not only wield tremendous power, but they also abuse it by charging exorbitant fees, imposing oppressive contract terms, and extracting valuable data from the people and businesses that rely on them.”
While the House is dominated by democrats the proposals were largely opposed by their republican counterparts.
However Democratic officials believe that Joe Biden’s administration would seriously consider the recommendations should they win next month’s election.
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