House Democrats, Republicans Agree Tech Companies Are Monopolies But Split On What To Do About It

Published October 13, 2020 at 12:40 PM CDT

A picture taken on Aug. 28, 2019 shows the US multinational technology and Internet-related services company Google logo application Amazon displayed on a tablet in Lille. (Denis Charlet/AFP via Getty Images)

The Department of Justice is expected to announce a lawsuit against Google as soon as this week, in what’s anticipated to be the biggest antitrust action since the 1990s case against Microsoft.

Calls to rein in big tech have grown louder on Capitol Hill in recent years, and last week the House Judiciary Committee released the results of a year-long investigation into the business practices of companies including Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.

The report found all four of those companies have monopoly power of some kind, and it laid out a menu of policy options for dealing with tech giants that the committee likened to the “oil barons and railroad tycoons” of past eras.

Here & Now‘s Tonya Mosley speaks with two members of the committee, Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Seattle and Republican Rep. Ken Buck of eastern Colorado.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.