The committee approved the report by 24 votes to 17, with voting entirely split along Democratic-Republican party lines.
David Cicilline (pictured), a Democratic Party representative for the state of Rhode Island, said: “Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook each hold monopoly power over significant sectors of our economy. This monopoly moment must end. I look forward to crafting legislation that addresses the significant concerns we have raised.”
Cicilline and Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democratic senator representing Minnesota, are already working on legislation, introduced last month — though that focused on helping news organisations negotiate with Facebook, Google and other platforms.
The Judiciary Committee’s report, more than 400 pages long, first came out in October, in what’s believed to be the first review by either part of the US Congress on the tech industry. The Cicilline report has a list of legal changes for the industry.
Meanwhile Klobuchar wants to restrict mergers involving the internet giants, by increasing the budgets of the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission, which enforce antitrust law.
