Dear Speaker Pelosi and Leader Schumer:

We represent a diverse group of civil society organizations who are deeply concerned about the dangers that Big Tech companies pose to consumers, our economy, and our democracy. We write to enthusiastically express support for the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee’s report, Investigation of Competition in Digital Markets, and to urge you to quickly act to enshrine the recommendations included in the report into law.
 

Chairmen David Cicilline and Jerrold Nadler led a bipartisan 16-month investigation, culminating in a report that is comprehensive, historic, and damning for the four companies targeted — Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. Every Member of Congress should review it for the richness of its detail into how the Big Tech monopolies operate, how they have exploited gaps in regulatory policy to achieve monopoly power, and what Congress can do to stop them. The report exposes numerous anti-competitive behaviors, including structural conflicts of interest, hundreds of mergers and acquisitions that have gone unchallenged by antitrust authorities, self-preferencing of products and services, predatory pricing and other methods of undermining competitors along with arbitrary denial of access to crucial systems and platforms to potential competitors.
 

The size, scope, and importance of the subcommittee’s report is even more impressive considering the monumental lobbying, political, and public relations campaign that Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google have waged to avoid accountability for their abuses. This report should serve as a wake-up call to other industries that Congress can and will hold them and agencies responsible for overseeing them accountable. Congress must act on its duty to protect small business, workers, our democracy, and our economy from a few giant companies rigging the rules for themselves.
 

For too long, a pro-corporate philosophy in both the courts and enforcement agencies has been allowed to undermine federal antitrust policy. As a result these bodies have largely abdicated their duties to enforce our nation’s antitrust laws . These recommendations would right these wrongs. Some of the most notable reforms include structural separations, a prohibition against future mergers by dominant companies, stronger antitrust enforcement powers, and the elimination of bad judicial precedents that have made antitrust enforcement nearly impossible. We wholeheartedly endorse these proposals, as well as the rest of the recommendations included in the report.
 

America has a monopoly problem. A growing body of research shows that monopoly power lowers wages, reduces innovation and entrepreneurship, elevates income and regional inequality, undermines the free press, and perpetuates toxic systems of racial and class dominance. Strong antitrust law, combined with other relevant governance and regulatory tools, will help mitigate the noxious impacts of concentrated corporate power.
 

We encourage you to place the recommendations in this report on your respective legislative agendas early in the next session. Your support of these needed changes will protect consumers, workers, and our democracy from Big Tech monopolies, which are not above the law and must no longer be permitted to act as if they are.

Signed,

 

American Family Voices

Athena Coalition

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Accountable Tech

ACRE (Action Center on Race and the Economy)

ALIGN: The Alliance for a Greater New York

American Booksellers Association

American Economic Liberties Project

American Independent Business Alliance

Awood Center

Backbone Campaign

Building with Dignity Center

Cambridge Local First

Center for Digital Democracy

Center for Popular Democracy

Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha

Courage Campaign

Dane Buy Local

Demand Progress

Demos

DRUM - Desis Rising Up & Moving

Fight for the Future

Freedom from Facebook and Google

Independent Office Products and Furniture Dealers Association

Inland Empire United

Institute for Local Self-Reliance

Jobs with Justice

Liberation in a Generation

Local First Arizona

Louisville Independent Business Alliance

Main Street Alliance

Make the Road New York

National Employment Law Project

New York Communities For Change

Open Markets Institute

Open MIC (Open Media and Information Companies Initiative)

Partnership for Working Families

Payne Chapel AME Church

People's Parity Project

Portland Buy Local

Public Citizen

Revolving Door Project

Running Industry Association

Stand Up Nashville

StayLocal

Strong Economy For All Coalition

U.S. PIRG

United for Respect

Warehouse Worker Resource Center

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cc  Members of Congress

 

 

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