SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
A 450-page House Judiciary Committee report on monopolistic tech company behavior recommends more stringent antitrust measures and breaking up Big Tech. (Photo: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)
House Democrats on Tuesday released a major report calling on Congress to overhaul U.S. antitrust law and take action to curtail the power of tech titans Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.
The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust spent 16 months investigating Big Tech, resulting in a 450-page report (pdf) that found the four tech companies wield abusive monopoly power and suggesting that lawmakers take steps to break them up.
"A company like Amazon needs to be treated like Standard Oil and be split into many pieces."
--Vahid Razavi, Ethics In Tech
The report details a litany of anti-competitive practices that have become business as usual for "companies that once were scrappy, underdog startups that challenged the status quo" but which have now "become the kinds of monopolies we last saw in the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons."
"Each platform now serves as a gatekeeper over a key channel of distribution," the investigation found. "By controlling access to markets, these giants can pick winners and losers throughout our economy."
\u201cToday, after a 16-month long investigation, the House Antitrust Subcommittee is releasing our report on the state of competition in the digital marketplace. You can read it here. https://t.co/PaEgLmAr7W\u201d— David Cicilline (@David Cicilline) 1602018919
According to the report, the "monopoly power" of the four tech giants has "diminished consumer choice, eroded innovation and entrepreneurship in the U.S. economy, weakened the vibrancy of the free and diverse press, and undermined Americans' privacy."
\u201cFirst off, this is an investigation on par with the big investigations of monopoly power that Congress has done in the past. Notably the TNEC, which conducted a huge investigation in the 1930s that drove substantial changes in monopoly policy and increased enforcement.\u201d— Stacy Mitchell (@Stacy Mitchell) 1602014814
The committee found that the companies, whose operations span multiple industries, use their dominance in one area of their business to undercut the competition in other areas.
Google's Android operation system, for example, gives it and its parent company Alphabet "near-perfect intelligence" on competiting companies that develop apps for Android. This allows Google to easily create its own apps to unfairly undercut the competition.
The committee concluded that Google fosters an "ecosystem of interlocking monopolies" perpetuated via two main anti-competitive practices.
First, the company aggressively works to "undermine... vertical search providers"--search engines for particular topics, like Expedia for travel or Dreamstime for photo sharing--in order to "boost Google's own inferior vertical offerings, while imposing penalties" on competitors.
Second, Google uses anti-competitive contracts, including ones that "required smartphone manufacturers to pre-install and give default status to Google's own apps."
\u201cThe threats Facebook and Google made to Australia after that country attempted to regulate them come up in the Cicilline Report on big tech. Apparently @davidcicilline is unhappy when big tech monopolies threaten sovereign nations.\u201d— Matt Stoller (@Matt Stoller) 1602017836
The report found that Amazon--which accounts for nearly half of all U.S. e-commerce sales (that's more than seven times as much as second-place Walmart)--unfairly reaps data from its third-party sellers it then uses to boost its own business.
Amazon then uses this edge to favor its own brands over those of competitors, excludes competing products from its virtual shelves, and prioritizes its own products in online search results.
The lawmakers accuse Apple of exercising monopoly power through its control of software downloaded to iPhones--which account for nearly half of all U.S. mobile phones in use. While iPhone users can only download apps from Apple's store, the report found that the company unfairly favors its own apps, while charging outside app developers "exorbitantly high" fees.
"Apple leverages its control of iOS and the App Store to create and enforce barriers to competition and discriminate against and exclude rivals while preferencing its own offerings," the report states. "Apple also uses its power to exploit app developers through misappropriation of competitively sensitive information and to charge app developers supra-competitive prices within the App Store."
\u201cGoogle Amazon Facebook and Apple publicly: \u201cWe support competition, we aren\u2019t monopolies.\u201d \n\nBehind closed doors: \uff4d\uff4f\uff52\uff45 \uff4d\uff45\uff52\uff47\uff45\uff52\uff53\uff4d\uff4f\uff52\uff45 \uff4d\uff45\uff52\uff47\uff45\uff52\uff53\uff4d\uff4f\uff52\uff45 \uff4d\uff45\uff52\uff47\uff45\uff52\uff53\n\nTy @HouseJudiciary for opening those doors. \ud83d\udc4f\n\nhttps://t.co/lW0VQ0dPyz\u201d— Open Markets Institute (@Open Markets Institute) 1602018066
The committe reported that Facebook enjoys monopoly power in both the online advertising and social networking markets, and that the company uses a "copy, acquire, kill" strategy to destroy competition.
For example, the investigators found that Facebook's 2012 acquisition of Instagram was a brazen attempt to "neutralize a nascent competitive threat" that was followed by an intentional effort to thwart the upstart's success so it couldn't compete with its new parent company.
"These firms have too much power, and that power must be reined in and subject to appropriate oversight and enforcement."
--House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee
The report cites an Instagram whistleblower who testified before Congress that there was "brutal infighting" between Facebook and Instagram, and that CEO Mark Zuckerberg's efforts to slow Instagram's growth amounted to "collusion... within an internal monopoly." It also discusses the infamous 2018 Cunningham Memo, a blueprint for such internal monopolistic collusion.
The committee concludes that Congress should update antitrust laws to make it more difficut for companies to obtain approval for mergers and acquisitions. It also calls for the abolition of mandatory arbitration clauses in tech companies' terms of service agreements that prevent users from suing either individually or through class-action lawsuits.
"The totality of the evidence produced during this investigation demonstrates the pressing need for legislative action and reform," the report states. "These firms have too much power, and that power must be reined in and subject to appropriate oversight and enforcement."
While Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and some Republican lawmakers have criticized the report, Democrats and digital rights advocates hailed its call for stronger antitrust protection and to break up Big Tech.
\u201cBig tech blows a collective raspberry at the House's antitrust report https://t.co/iKhpdWqL6V by @riptari\u201d— TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) 1602070015
"Our investigation leaves no doubt that there is a clear and compelling need for Congress and the antitrust enforcement agencies to take action that restores competition, improves innovation, and safeguards our democracy," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) said in a joint statement.
"By reasserting the power of Congress, we now have a thoroughly researched and reasoned roadmap for the work ahead as we rein in anti-competitive behavior, help prevent monopolistic practices, and allow innovation to thrive again," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.). "I'm looking forward to continuing this urgent work."
\u201cBy reasserting the power of Congress, we now have a thoroughly researched and reasoned roadmap for the work ahead as we rein in anti-competitive behavior, help prevent monopolistic practices and allow innovation to thrive again. I\u2019m looking forward to continuing this urgent work.\u201d— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@Rep. Pramila Jayapal) 1602020286
\u201cFor too long, giant tech companies have thrown around their weight to crush competition, exploit our data, and become even more powerful. This report is more evidence that Congress must rein in big tech to protect our economy, society, and democracy. https://t.co/iyURAMcYr1\u201d— Elizabeth Warren (@Elizabeth Warren) 1602093761
In a Tuesday blog post, the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation said that "many of the report's recommendations echo calls EFF has also made, proof of just how obviously effective, needed, and common-sense they are," adding that it is "pleased to see the report go beyond U.S. antitrust law's narrow focus on consumer prices."
"Overall, the Judiciary Committee report is a strong, evidence-based prescription for fixing antitrust law to help address the problems of Big Tech," said EFF. "We hope the conversation continues, with good changes to the law and increased enforcement yet to come."
\u201cNEW: U.S. House Judiciary Committee report on Big Tech says that antitrust laws should protect consumers AND "democratic ideals." We couldn't agree more.\nhttps://t.co/92b41EWYPT\u201d— Access Now (@Access Now) 1602084730
Vahid Razavi, a former Amazon Web Services manager and founder of the nonprofit advocacy group Ethics In Tech, applauded the report and said it was nice to hear more lawmakers concur with his long-held assertion that the biggest tech companies are monopolies.
"Big Tech must be broken up," Razavi told Common Dreams. "A company like Amazon needs to be treated like Standard Oil and be split into many pieces. Amazon Web Services is a monopoly by itself. AWS competes with many of its customers and partners today."
"Every partner that I previously managed on behalf of AWS is now facing competing product offerings by Jeff Bezos and his team at AWS," he added of the Amazon CEO.
Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next. It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk. Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. |
House Democrats on Tuesday released a major report calling on Congress to overhaul U.S. antitrust law and take action to curtail the power of tech titans Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.
The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust spent 16 months investigating Big Tech, resulting in a 450-page report (pdf) that found the four tech companies wield abusive monopoly power and suggesting that lawmakers take steps to break them up.
"A company like Amazon needs to be treated like Standard Oil and be split into many pieces."
--Vahid Razavi, Ethics In Tech
The report details a litany of anti-competitive practices that have become business as usual for "companies that once were scrappy, underdog startups that challenged the status quo" but which have now "become the kinds of monopolies we last saw in the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons."
"Each platform now serves as a gatekeeper over a key channel of distribution," the investigation found. "By controlling access to markets, these giants can pick winners and losers throughout our economy."
\u201cToday, after a 16-month long investigation, the House Antitrust Subcommittee is releasing our report on the state of competition in the digital marketplace. You can read it here. https://t.co/PaEgLmAr7W\u201d— David Cicilline (@David Cicilline) 1602018919
According to the report, the "monopoly power" of the four tech giants has "diminished consumer choice, eroded innovation and entrepreneurship in the U.S. economy, weakened the vibrancy of the free and diverse press, and undermined Americans' privacy."
\u201cFirst off, this is an investigation on par with the big investigations of monopoly power that Congress has done in the past. Notably the TNEC, which conducted a huge investigation in the 1930s that drove substantial changes in monopoly policy and increased enforcement.\u201d— Stacy Mitchell (@Stacy Mitchell) 1602014814
The committee found that the companies, whose operations span multiple industries, use their dominance in one area of their business to undercut the competition in other areas.
Google's Android operation system, for example, gives it and its parent company Alphabet "near-perfect intelligence" on competiting companies that develop apps for Android. This allows Google to easily create its own apps to unfairly undercut the competition.
The committee concluded that Google fosters an "ecosystem of interlocking monopolies" perpetuated via two main anti-competitive practices.
First, the company aggressively works to "undermine... vertical search providers"--search engines for particular topics, like Expedia for travel or Dreamstime for photo sharing--in order to "boost Google's own inferior vertical offerings, while imposing penalties" on competitors.
Second, Google uses anti-competitive contracts, including ones that "required smartphone manufacturers to pre-install and give default status to Google's own apps."
\u201cThe threats Facebook and Google made to Australia after that country attempted to regulate them come up in the Cicilline Report on big tech. Apparently @davidcicilline is unhappy when big tech monopolies threaten sovereign nations.\u201d— Matt Stoller (@Matt Stoller) 1602017836
The report found that Amazon--which accounts for nearly half of all U.S. e-commerce sales (that's more than seven times as much as second-place Walmart)--unfairly reaps data from its third-party sellers it then uses to boost its own business.
Amazon then uses this edge to favor its own brands over those of competitors, excludes competing products from its virtual shelves, and prioritizes its own products in online search results.
The lawmakers accuse Apple of exercising monopoly power through its control of software downloaded to iPhones--which account for nearly half of all U.S. mobile phones in use. While iPhone users can only download apps from Apple's store, the report found that the company unfairly favors its own apps, while charging outside app developers "exorbitantly high" fees.
"Apple leverages its control of iOS and the App Store to create and enforce barriers to competition and discriminate against and exclude rivals while preferencing its own offerings," the report states. "Apple also uses its power to exploit app developers through misappropriation of competitively sensitive information and to charge app developers supra-competitive prices within the App Store."
\u201cGoogle Amazon Facebook and Apple publicly: \u201cWe support competition, we aren\u2019t monopolies.\u201d \n\nBehind closed doors: \uff4d\uff4f\uff52\uff45 \uff4d\uff45\uff52\uff47\uff45\uff52\uff53\uff4d\uff4f\uff52\uff45 \uff4d\uff45\uff52\uff47\uff45\uff52\uff53\uff4d\uff4f\uff52\uff45 \uff4d\uff45\uff52\uff47\uff45\uff52\uff53\n\nTy @HouseJudiciary for opening those doors. \ud83d\udc4f\n\nhttps://t.co/lW0VQ0dPyz\u201d— Open Markets Institute (@Open Markets Institute) 1602018066
The committe reported that Facebook enjoys monopoly power in both the online advertising and social networking markets, and that the company uses a "copy, acquire, kill" strategy to destroy competition.
For example, the investigators found that Facebook's 2012 acquisition of Instagram was a brazen attempt to "neutralize a nascent competitive threat" that was followed by an intentional effort to thwart the upstart's success so it couldn't compete with its new parent company.
"These firms have too much power, and that power must be reined in and subject to appropriate oversight and enforcement."
--House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee
The report cites an Instagram whistleblower who testified before Congress that there was "brutal infighting" between Facebook and Instagram, and that CEO Mark Zuckerberg's efforts to slow Instagram's growth amounted to "collusion... within an internal monopoly." It also discusses the infamous 2018 Cunningham Memo, a blueprint for such internal monopolistic collusion.
The committee concludes that Congress should update antitrust laws to make it more difficut for companies to obtain approval for mergers and acquisitions. It also calls for the abolition of mandatory arbitration clauses in tech companies' terms of service agreements that prevent users from suing either individually or through class-action lawsuits.
"The totality of the evidence produced during this investigation demonstrates the pressing need for legislative action and reform," the report states. "These firms have too much power, and that power must be reined in and subject to appropriate oversight and enforcement."
While Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and some Republican lawmakers have criticized the report, Democrats and digital rights advocates hailed its call for stronger antitrust protection and to break up Big Tech.
\u201cBig tech blows a collective raspberry at the House's antitrust report https://t.co/iKhpdWqL6V by @riptari\u201d— TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) 1602070015
"Our investigation leaves no doubt that there is a clear and compelling need for Congress and the antitrust enforcement agencies to take action that restores competition, improves innovation, and safeguards our democracy," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) said in a joint statement.
"By reasserting the power of Congress, we now have a thoroughly researched and reasoned roadmap for the work ahead as we rein in anti-competitive behavior, help prevent monopolistic practices, and allow innovation to thrive again," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.). "I'm looking forward to continuing this urgent work."
\u201cBy reasserting the power of Congress, we now have a thoroughly researched and reasoned roadmap for the work ahead as we rein in anti-competitive behavior, help prevent monopolistic practices and allow innovation to thrive again. I\u2019m looking forward to continuing this urgent work.\u201d— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@Rep. Pramila Jayapal) 1602020286
\u201cFor too long, giant tech companies have thrown around their weight to crush competition, exploit our data, and become even more powerful. This report is more evidence that Congress must rein in big tech to protect our economy, society, and democracy. https://t.co/iyURAMcYr1\u201d— Elizabeth Warren (@Elizabeth Warren) 1602093761
In a Tuesday blog post, the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation said that "many of the report's recommendations echo calls EFF has also made, proof of just how obviously effective, needed, and common-sense they are," adding that it is "pleased to see the report go beyond U.S. antitrust law's narrow focus on consumer prices."
"Overall, the Judiciary Committee report is a strong, evidence-based prescription for fixing antitrust law to help address the problems of Big Tech," said EFF. "We hope the conversation continues, with good changes to the law and increased enforcement yet to come."
\u201cNEW: U.S. House Judiciary Committee report on Big Tech says that antitrust laws should protect consumers AND "democratic ideals." We couldn't agree more.\nhttps://t.co/92b41EWYPT\u201d— Access Now (@Access Now) 1602084730
Vahid Razavi, a former Amazon Web Services manager and founder of the nonprofit advocacy group Ethics In Tech, applauded the report and said it was nice to hear more lawmakers concur with his long-held assertion that the biggest tech companies are monopolies.
"Big Tech must be broken up," Razavi told Common Dreams. "A company like Amazon needs to be treated like Standard Oil and be split into many pieces. Amazon Web Services is a monopoly by itself. AWS competes with many of its customers and partners today."
"Every partner that I previously managed on behalf of AWS is now facing competing product offerings by Jeff Bezos and his team at AWS," he added of the Amazon CEO.
House Democrats on Tuesday released a major report calling on Congress to overhaul U.S. antitrust law and take action to curtail the power of tech titans Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.
The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust spent 16 months investigating Big Tech, resulting in a 450-page report (pdf) that found the four tech companies wield abusive monopoly power and suggesting that lawmakers take steps to break them up.
"A company like Amazon needs to be treated like Standard Oil and be split into many pieces."
--Vahid Razavi, Ethics In Tech
The report details a litany of anti-competitive practices that have become business as usual for "companies that once were scrappy, underdog startups that challenged the status quo" but which have now "become the kinds of monopolies we last saw in the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons."
"Each platform now serves as a gatekeeper over a key channel of distribution," the investigation found. "By controlling access to markets, these giants can pick winners and losers throughout our economy."
\u201cToday, after a 16-month long investigation, the House Antitrust Subcommittee is releasing our report on the state of competition in the digital marketplace. You can read it here. https://t.co/PaEgLmAr7W\u201d— David Cicilline (@David Cicilline) 1602018919
According to the report, the "monopoly power" of the four tech giants has "diminished consumer choice, eroded innovation and entrepreneurship in the U.S. economy, weakened the vibrancy of the free and diverse press, and undermined Americans' privacy."
\u201cFirst off, this is an investigation on par with the big investigations of monopoly power that Congress has done in the past. Notably the TNEC, which conducted a huge investigation in the 1930s that drove substantial changes in monopoly policy and increased enforcement.\u201d— Stacy Mitchell (@Stacy Mitchell) 1602014814
The committee found that the companies, whose operations span multiple industries, use their dominance in one area of their business to undercut the competition in other areas.
Google's Android operation system, for example, gives it and its parent company Alphabet "near-perfect intelligence" on competiting companies that develop apps for Android. This allows Google to easily create its own apps to unfairly undercut the competition.
The committee concluded that Google fosters an "ecosystem of interlocking monopolies" perpetuated via two main anti-competitive practices.
First, the company aggressively works to "undermine... vertical search providers"--search engines for particular topics, like Expedia for travel or Dreamstime for photo sharing--in order to "boost Google's own inferior vertical offerings, while imposing penalties" on competitors.
Second, Google uses anti-competitive contracts, including ones that "required smartphone manufacturers to pre-install and give default status to Google's own apps."
\u201cThe threats Facebook and Google made to Australia after that country attempted to regulate them come up in the Cicilline Report on big tech. Apparently @davidcicilline is unhappy when big tech monopolies threaten sovereign nations.\u201d— Matt Stoller (@Matt Stoller) 1602017836
The report found that Amazon--which accounts for nearly half of all U.S. e-commerce sales (that's more than seven times as much as second-place Walmart)--unfairly reaps data from its third-party sellers it then uses to boost its own business.
Amazon then uses this edge to favor its own brands over those of competitors, excludes competing products from its virtual shelves, and prioritizes its own products in online search results.
The lawmakers accuse Apple of exercising monopoly power through its control of software downloaded to iPhones--which account for nearly half of all U.S. mobile phones in use. While iPhone users can only download apps from Apple's store, the report found that the company unfairly favors its own apps, while charging outside app developers "exorbitantly high" fees.
"Apple leverages its control of iOS and the App Store to create and enforce barriers to competition and discriminate against and exclude rivals while preferencing its own offerings," the report states. "Apple also uses its power to exploit app developers through misappropriation of competitively sensitive information and to charge app developers supra-competitive prices within the App Store."
\u201cGoogle Amazon Facebook and Apple publicly: \u201cWe support competition, we aren\u2019t monopolies.\u201d \n\nBehind closed doors: \uff4d\uff4f\uff52\uff45 \uff4d\uff45\uff52\uff47\uff45\uff52\uff53\uff4d\uff4f\uff52\uff45 \uff4d\uff45\uff52\uff47\uff45\uff52\uff53\uff4d\uff4f\uff52\uff45 \uff4d\uff45\uff52\uff47\uff45\uff52\uff53\n\nTy @HouseJudiciary for opening those doors. \ud83d\udc4f\n\nhttps://t.co/lW0VQ0dPyz\u201d— Open Markets Institute (@Open Markets Institute) 1602018066
The committe reported that Facebook enjoys monopoly power in both the online advertising and social networking markets, and that the company uses a "copy, acquire, kill" strategy to destroy competition.
For example, the investigators found that Facebook's 2012 acquisition of Instagram was a brazen attempt to "neutralize a nascent competitive threat" that was followed by an intentional effort to thwart the upstart's success so it couldn't compete with its new parent company.
"These firms have too much power, and that power must be reined in and subject to appropriate oversight and enforcement."
--House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee
The report cites an Instagram whistleblower who testified before Congress that there was "brutal infighting" between Facebook and Instagram, and that CEO Mark Zuckerberg's efforts to slow Instagram's growth amounted to "collusion... within an internal monopoly." It also discusses the infamous 2018 Cunningham Memo, a blueprint for such internal monopolistic collusion.
The committee concludes that Congress should update antitrust laws to make it more difficut for companies to obtain approval for mergers and acquisitions. It also calls for the abolition of mandatory arbitration clauses in tech companies' terms of service agreements that prevent users from suing either individually or through class-action lawsuits.
"The totality of the evidence produced during this investigation demonstrates the pressing need for legislative action and reform," the report states. "These firms have too much power, and that power must be reined in and subject to appropriate oversight and enforcement."
While Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and some Republican lawmakers have criticized the report, Democrats and digital rights advocates hailed its call for stronger antitrust protection and to break up Big Tech.
\u201cBig tech blows a collective raspberry at the House's antitrust report https://t.co/iKhpdWqL6V by @riptari\u201d— TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) 1602070015
"Our investigation leaves no doubt that there is a clear and compelling need for Congress and the antitrust enforcement agencies to take action that restores competition, improves innovation, and safeguards our democracy," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) said in a joint statement.
"By reasserting the power of Congress, we now have a thoroughly researched and reasoned roadmap for the work ahead as we rein in anti-competitive behavior, help prevent monopolistic practices, and allow innovation to thrive again," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.). "I'm looking forward to continuing this urgent work."
\u201cBy reasserting the power of Congress, we now have a thoroughly researched and reasoned roadmap for the work ahead as we rein in anti-competitive behavior, help prevent monopolistic practices and allow innovation to thrive again. I\u2019m looking forward to continuing this urgent work.\u201d— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@Rep. Pramila Jayapal) 1602020286
\u201cFor too long, giant tech companies have thrown around their weight to crush competition, exploit our data, and become even more powerful. This report is more evidence that Congress must rein in big tech to protect our economy, society, and democracy. https://t.co/iyURAMcYr1\u201d— Elizabeth Warren (@Elizabeth Warren) 1602093761
In a Tuesday blog post, the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation said that "many of the report's recommendations echo calls EFF has also made, proof of just how obviously effective, needed, and common-sense they are," adding that it is "pleased to see the report go beyond U.S. antitrust law's narrow focus on consumer prices."
"Overall, the Judiciary Committee report is a strong, evidence-based prescription for fixing antitrust law to help address the problems of Big Tech," said EFF. "We hope the conversation continues, with good changes to the law and increased enforcement yet to come."
\u201cNEW: U.S. House Judiciary Committee report on Big Tech says that antitrust laws should protect consumers AND "democratic ideals." We couldn't agree more.\nhttps://t.co/92b41EWYPT\u201d— Access Now (@Access Now) 1602084730
Vahid Razavi, a former Amazon Web Services manager and founder of the nonprofit advocacy group Ethics In Tech, applauded the report and said it was nice to hear more lawmakers concur with his long-held assertion that the biggest tech companies are monopolies.
"Big Tech must be broken up," Razavi told Common Dreams. "A company like Amazon needs to be treated like Standard Oil and be split into many pieces. Amazon Web Services is a monopoly by itself. AWS competes with many of its customers and partners today."
"Every partner that I previously managed on behalf of AWS is now facing competing product offerings by Jeff Bezos and his team at AWS," he added of the Amazon CEO.
Khalil's wife said that "officers in plain clothes—who refused to show us a warrant, speak with our attorney, or even tell us their names—forced my husband into an unmarked car and took him away from me."
The family of Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the United States now at risk of deportation because he helped lead pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University last spring, on Friday released a video of his recent arrest by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents in New York City, which has sparked legal battles and protests.
"You're watching the most terrifying moment of my life," Khalil's wife, Noor, said in a statement about the two-minute video. "This felt like a kidnapping because it was: Officers in plain clothes—who refused to show us a warrant, speak with our attorney, or even tell us their names—forced my husband into an unmarked car and took him away from me."
"Everyone should be alarmed and urgently calling for the freedom of Mahmoud and all other students under attack for their advocacy for Palestinian human rights."
"They threatened to take me too, even though we were calm and fully cooperating. For the next 38 hours after this video, neither I or our lawyers knew where Mahmoud was being held. Now, he's over 1,000 miles from home, still being wrongfully detained by U.S. immigration," said Noor, whose husband is detained at a facility in Jena, Louisiana.
Noor, who is eight months pregnant, noted that "Mahmoud has repeatedly warned of growing threats from Columbia University and the U.S. government unjustly targeting students who want to see an end to Israel's genocide in Gaza. Now, the Trump administration and DHS are targeting him, and other students too."
"Mahmoud is clearly the first of many to be illegally repressed for their speech in support of Palestinian rights," she added. "Everyone should be alarmed and urgently calling for the freedom of Mahmoud and all other students under attack for their advocacy for Palestinian human rights."
Khalil, who finished his graduate studies at Columbia in December, is an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent. He was living in the United States with a green card until his arrest on Saturday. In response to a filing by his legal team—which includes Amy Greer from Dratel & Lewis, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) project—a judge has temporarily blocked his deportation.
The ACLU and its New York arm have joined Khalil's legal team, and his attorneys filed an amended petition and complaint on Thursday. NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman said that with the new "filing, we are making it crystal clear that no president can arrest, detain, or deport anyone for disagreeing with the government. The Trump administration has selectively targeted Mr. Khalil, a student, husband, and father-to-be who has not been accused of a single crime, to send a message of just how far they will go to crack down on dissent."
"But we at the NYCLU and ACLU won't stand for it—under the Constitution, the Trump administration has no basis to continue this cruel weaponization of Mr. Khalil's life," Lieberman added. "The court must release Mr. Khalil immediately and let him go home to his family in New York, where he belongs. Ideas are not illegal, and dissent is not grounds for deportation."
Samah Sisay of CCR reiterated those messages as the arrest video circulated on Friday, saying that "Mr. Khalil was taken by plainclothes DHS agents in front of his pregnant wife without any legal justification. Mr. Khalil must be freed because the government cannot use these coercive tactics to unlawfully suppress his First Amendment protected speech in support of Palestinian rights."
"Between his massive conflicts of interest across the healthcare sector and his endorsement of further privatizing Medicare, Oz would be a threat to the health of tens of millions of Americans," said one opponent.
Progressive watchdog organizations responded to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee's Friday hearing for Dr. Mehmet Oz by again sounding the alarm about the heart surgeon and former television host nominated to lead a key federal healthcare agency.
Since President Donald Trump announced Oz as his nominee for administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) last November, opponents have spotlighted the doctor's promotion of unproven products, investments in companies with interests in the federal agency, and support for expanding Medicare Advantage during an unsuccessful U.S. Senate run in 2022.
"Dr. Oz's career promoting dubious medical treatments and pseudoscience often for personal financial gain should immediately disqualify him from serving in any public health capacity, let alone in a top administration health post," Accountable.US executive director Tony Carrk said in a Friday statement.
"Dr. Oz's nomination is part of President Trump's grand plan to enrich his corporate donors and wealthy friends while the rest of us get higher costs, less coverage, and weakened protections."
In December, Carrk's group found that based on disclosures from Oz's 2022 run against U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), the Republican doctor reported "up to $56 million in investments in three companies" with direct CMS interests—including Sharecare, which became the "exclusive in-home care supplemental benefit program" for 1.5 million Medicare Advantage enrollees.
A spokesperson said at the time that Oz has since divested from Sharecare. However, critics have still expressed concern about how the nominee's confirmation could boost Republican efforts to expand Medicare Advantage—health insurance plans for seniors administered by private companies rather than the government.
"As a self-interested advocate of privatizing Medicare at a higher cost and more denials of care for seniors, Dr. Oz is surely eager to enact the Trump-Republican budget plan to gut Medicare and Medicaid and jeopardize health coverage for millions of Americans—all to pay for more tax breaks for billionaires and price gouging corporations," said Carrk. "Dr. Oz's nomination is part of President Trump's grand plan to enrich his corporate donors and wealthy friends while the rest of us get higher costs, less coverage, and weakened protections—especially those with preexisting conditions."
As he faces Senate confirmation, remember that Dr. Oz: -Pushed Medicare privatization plans on his show -Owns ~$600k in stock in private insurers -Has ties to pyramid scheme companies that promote fake medical cures His main qualification to oversee CMS is loyalty to Trump.
— Robert Reich ( @rbreich.bsky.social) March 14, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, has been similarly critical of Oz, and remained so after senators questioned him on Friday, saying in a statement that "Mehmet Oz showed he is profoundly unqualified to lead any part of our healthcare system, let alone an agency as important as CMS."
"Between his massive conflicts of interest across the healthcare sector and his endorsement of further privatizing Medicare, Oz would be a threat to the health of tens of millions of Americans," Weissman warned. "Privatized Medicare Advantage plans deliver inferior care and cost taxpayers nearly $100 billion annually in excess costs."
"It is time for President Trump to put down the remote, stop finding nominees on television, and instead nominate people with actual experience and a belief in the importance of protecting crucial health programs like Medicare and Medicaid," he argued, taking aim at not only the president but also his billionaire adviser Elon Musk, head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency and, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the conspiracy theorist now running the Department of Health and Human Services.
Weissman declared that "Trump, Musk, and RFK Jr. fail to put the American people first as they seek to gut agencies and make dangerous cuts to health programs to fund tax cuts for billionaires. Oz indicated he would not oppose such cuts, bringing more destruction to lifesaving programs. Oz has no place in government and should be roundly rejected by every senator."
During a Friday exchange with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the committee's ranking member, Oz refused to decisively commit to opposing cuts to Medicaid. As the Alliance for Retired Americans highlighted, Oz kept that up when given opportunities to revise his answer by Sens. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.).
Other moments from the hearing that garnered attention included Oz's exchange with Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) about Affordable Care Act tax credits and Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) calling out the doctor for his unwillingness "to take accountability for" his "promotion of unproven snake oil remedies" to millions of TV viewers.
Betar—which the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League has blacklisted after comments like "not enough" babies were killed in Gaza—says it provided "thousands of names" for possible arrest and expulsion.
Betar, the international far-right pro-Israel group that took credit for the Department of Homeland Security's arrest of former Columbia University graduate student and permanent U.S. resident Mahmoud Khalil for protesting the annihilation of Gaza, claimed this week that it has sent "thousands of names" of Palestine defenders to Trump administration officials for possible deportation.
"Jihadis have no place in civilized nations," Betar said on social media Friday following the publication of a Guardian article on the extremist group's activities.
Earlier this week, Betar said: "We told you we have been working on deportations and will continue to do so. Expect naturalized citizens to start being picked up within the month. You heard it here first. Those who support jihad and intifada and originate in terrorist states will be sent back to those lands."
Betar has been gloating about last week's arrest of Khalil, the lead negotiator for the group Columbia University Apartheid Divest during the April 2024 Gaza Solidarity Encampment.
On Thursday, immigration officers arrested another Columbia Gaza protester, Leqaa Kordia—a Palestinian from the illegally occupied West Bank—for allegedly overstaying her expired student visa. Kordia was also arrested last April during one of the Columbia campus protests against the Gaza onslaught.
On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian doctoral student at Columbia whose visa was revoked on March 5 for alleged involvement "in activities supporting" Hamas—the Palestinian resistance group designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government—used the Customs and Border Protection's self-deportation app and, according to media reports, has left the country.
Khalil and Kordia's arrests come as the Trump administration targets Columbia and other schools over pro-Palestinian protests under the guise of combating antisemitism, despite the Ivy League university's violent crackdown on demonstrations and revocation of degrees from some pro-Palestine activists.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who in January signed an executive order authorizing the deportation of noncitizen students and others who took part in protests against Israel's war on Gaza, called Khalil's detention "the first arrest of many to come."
The Department of Justice announced Friday that it is investigating whether pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the school violated federal anti-terrorism laws. This followed Thursday's search of two Columbia dorm rooms by DHS agents and the cancellation earlier this month of $400 million worth of funding and contracts for Columbia because the Trump administration says university officials haven't done enough to tackle alleged antisemitism on campus.
On Friday, Betar named Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian studying philosophy at Columbia, as its next target.
Critics have voiced alarm about Betar's activities, pointing to the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League's recent designation of the organization as a hate group. Founded in 1923 by the early Zionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Betar has a long history of extremism. Its members—who included former Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin—took part in the Zionist terror campaign against Palestinian Arabs and British forces occupying Palestine in the 1940s.
Today, Betar supports Kahanism—a Jewish supremacist and apartheid movement named after Meir Kahane, an Orthodox rabbi convicted of terrorism before being assassinated in 1990—and is linked to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party. The group has called for the ethnic cleansing and Israeli recolonization of Gaza. During Israel's assault on the coastal enclave, which is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case, its account on the social media site X responded to the publication of a list of thousands of Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces by saying: "Not enough. We demand blood in Gaza!"
Ross Glick, who led the U.S. chapter of Betar until last month, told The Guardian that he has met with bipartisan members of Congress who support the group's efforts, naming lawmakers including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and John Fetterman (D-Pa.). Glick also claimed to have the support of "collaborators" who use artificial intelligence and facial recognition to help identify pro-Palestine activists. Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department said it was launching an AI-powered "catch and revoke" program to cancel the visas of international students deemed supportive of Hamas.
Betar isn't alone in aggressively targeting Palestine defenders. The group Canary Mission—which said it is "delighted" about Khalil's "deserved consequences"—publishes an online database containing personal information about people it deems antisemitic, and this week released a video naming five other international students it says are "linked to campus extremism at Columbia."
Shai Davidai, an assistant professor at Columbia who was temporarily banned from campus last year after harassing university employees, and Columbia student David Lederer, have waged what Khalil called "a vicious, coordinated, and dehumanizing doxxing campaign" against him and other activists.
Meanwhile, opponents of the Trump administration's crackdown on constitutionally protected protest rights have rallied in defense of Khalil and the First Amendment. Nearly 100 Jewish-led demonstrators were arrested Thursday during a protest in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City demanding Khalil's release.
"We know what happens when an autocratic regime starts taking away our rights and scapegoating and we will not be silent," said Sonya Meyerson-Knox, the communications director for Jewish Voice for Peace. "Come for one—face us all."