Open Markets: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi Takes Step in Right Direction Against Big Tech Monopolies

Washington, D.C. — Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), interviewed on the Recode podcast this week, said “There are clear lines that we see in...companies that maybe could be easily broken up, without any impact, one on the other. I’m a big believer in the antitrust laws.” Pelosi said giant platform monopolies such as Facebook, Amazon, and Google can no longer be counted on to “self-regulate.” Further, the Speaker accused these corporations of abusing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which was designed to protect internet intermediaries from responsibility for what others post on their platforms.

Pelosi’s statements are a big step in the right direction. For nearly four decades, the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department have largely failed to enforce America’s antimonopoly laws, allowing for the greatest concentration of private power in more than a century. One result is that the platform monopolies today routinely violate our privacy, foster discrimination in the prices and services delivered to different people and groups of people, and have bankrupted large proportion of America’s free press.

Open Markets Institute calls on Congress to force the FTC and the DOJ to enforce all of America’s antimonopoly laws. This must include outright bans on all discrimination by Google, Facebook, and Amazon in pricing, terms, and services, to both the sellers and buyers on these platforms. It must also include a complete prohibition on these corporations competing against their own customers. Congress must act now. Our liberties and our democracy are at stake.