The Judicial Committee of the United States House of Representatives approved a report on Thursday that accuses firms such as Amazon, Facebook, and Google of having taken advantage of their dominance to eradicate competition, urging congress to divide those technological giants.
The document was approved with the support of 24 legislators, all Democrats, while seven Republicans voted against it.
The text, which was published for the first time in October last year, was prepared after investigating the market position of Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Google for 16 months.
In that sense, the report affirms that Facebook and Google have the power of a monopoly, while Apple and Amazon maintain an “important and lasting market power”.
In addition, United States antitrust agencies are criticized for failing to limit the dominance of these companies.
The 449-page report recommends that Congress consider a series of measures, such as legislation that forces these companies to separate their popular internet platforms from other lines of business, in addition to changes in antitrust laws to revitalize the apparent absence of firm compliance.
The report does not carry legal consequences in itself, but lawmakers are confident that its findings will encourage policymakers to take action.
In fact, the report already prompted in March a bipartisan group of legislators led by Democrat Amy Klobuchar and Republican David Cicilline to present a bill to increase the bargaining power of the media against platforms such as Google and Facebook.
The media accuse companies like Facebook and Google of using their news to attract users without sharing a sufficient amount of the advertising profits.
Now that the lower house judicial committee has approved the report, Cicilline hopes that the law he proposed with Klobuchar can begin to be debated.
“Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook maintain a monopoly in significant sectors of our economy. That monopoly must end,” he said in a statement.
