Senate Republicans are demanding a public hearing on what they view as the failure of the Obama administration to enforce antitrust law in a 2011 investigation into Google.
Sens. Josh Hawley, Mike Lee, and Marsha Blackburn are calling on Google executives and Federal Trade Commission officials to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee over new revelations reported by Politico that show that antitrust regulators declined to sue Google following an inquiry into whether the tech giant tailored to the detriment of its rivals.
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“The reporting confirms what has become increasingly apparent in recent years: confronted with the most consequential antitrust case in a generation, and ample evidence of market dominance and misconduct, the nation’s antitrust enforcers failed to act,” the senators wrote to Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Dick Durbin. “Instead, after a 19-month investigation, the Obama Administration’s FTC agreed to a non-binding sweetheart deal proposed by Google itself.” A letter was also sent to acting FTC Chairwoman Rebecca Kelly Slaughter.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Durbin’s office for comment on the letter. Google responded to the disclosure by decrying a “D.C. parlor game” to second-guess the FTC’s decision to close its investigation.
The trade commission spent 19 months, between 2011 and 2013, investigating allegations that Google broke antitrust laws by unfairly promoting its own products ahead of its competitors in its online search results. Memos show the FTC’s antitrust lawyers urged the agency to sue Google over its efforts. But the five commissioners closed the inquiry and declined to sue. This was after Google put forward “voluntary commitments” to settle the matter, according to Politico.
Congress is increasing its scrutiny of Big Tech companies, which a growing number of lawmakers say have cultivated a dangerous concentration of power and engaged in monopolistic practices.
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Earlier this week, senators introduced the first bipartisan bill of the new Congress that could hold companies such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter more accountable for their content moderation practices by overhauling their liability protections.
Republicans have also been vocal about their accusations that Big Tech has a liberal bias, putting conservative voices at risk of being censored or diluted online.
Democrats have targeted Silicon Valley over the desire to police extremist content that could be prone to real-life violence, which some connected to the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
At a hearing last fall, Senate Democrats also accused social media giants for failing to prevent Russian interference in the 2016 election.
