Congress has been investigating Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon for practicing “anticompetitive tactics” in the digital marketplace. They believe that these tech giants have been abusing their power and influence in ways that have been detrimental to start-up companies that have looked to compete with them. The investigation found that the companies acted as “gatekeepers” in their onlines services by controlling third-party businesses (such as App Store developers), promoting their own services more than others, and buying out competitors that they deemed a threat to their own product. The report by the House antitrust committee concluded by recommending the government to break up the companies and restore competition, especially for small businesses.
