The research of College of Law Professor Maurice Stucke has been extensively cited in a report titled “Investigation of Competition in Digital Markets” released this week by the U.S. House of Representatives.
Since June 2019, the U.S. Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission and State Attorneys General have been investigating the dominance and business practices of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google to determine how their power affects the U.S. economy and democracy.
As part of that investigation, the House Judiciary Committee has heard testimony tech CEOs Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sundar Pichai of Google.
Stucke, who was among the antitrust scholars who provided comments to the Congressional committee, is cited 22 times in the 449-page report released Wednesday by House Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust Subcommittee.
The final report incorporates some of Stucke’s recommendations and offers a series of possible remedies to restore competition in the digital economy, strengthen the antitrust laws and reinvigorate antitrust enforcement.
“The report’s timely policy recommendations are needed to promote a more inclusive economy that actually serves us, rather than serving the Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google data-opolies,” Stucke said. “Many scholars in recent years have called for a correction of antitrust policy. This underscores a genuine concern for the risks that these powerful platforms are having on our autonomy, well-being, democracy and marketplace of ideas.”
A news release Wednesday from the House Committee on the Judiciary announcing the completion of the report says there is a “clear and compelling need to strengthen antitrust enforcement and consider a range of forceful options, including structural separations and prohibitions on anticompetitive conduct.”
A story published Wednesday by the New York Times calls the House report “the most significant government effort to check the world’s largest tech companies since the government sued Microsoft for antitrust violations in the 1990s. It offers lawmakers a deeply researched road map for turning criticism of Silicon Valley’s influence into concrete actions.”