On October 1, Professor Zephyr Teachout was a witness at the House Antitrust Subcommittee’s seventh and final hearing in a series examining if Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are operating as illegal monopolies. She told the subcommittee that Congress, not the Supreme Court, should regulate Big Tech.
“It is quintessentially a congressional job to respond to this threat,” Teachout said, calling for “significant” new legislation.
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When acting to regulate Big Tech, Teachout argued, Congress should limit certain large companies to a single line of business, preventing Amazon, for example, from controlling businesses for online commerce while also controlling shipping and fulfillment. The approach would similarly impact Google’s ability to control platforms that both serve and sell online advertisements.
“Amazon takes as much as 30% of every sale,” Teachout said about seller transactions on the marketplace. “This is essentially a form of private tax…and that’s really dangerous for democracy.”