By Kristina Peterson
WASHINGTON -- Technology companies are set to come into the
crosshairs of a House panel led by Rep. David Cicilline, a Rhode
Island Democrat with an independent streak.
On Tuesday, the Judiciary Committee's antitrust panel will open
an investigation into tech companies and antitrust laws with a look
at the impact online platforms have had on journalism. The
congressional probe comes as the Justice Department prepares to
investigate Alphabet Inc.'s Google, while the Federal Trade
Commission plans to focus on the dominance of Facebook Inc. In
addition, Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. also could come under
scrutiny by the agencies.
"We're going to look at the conduct of these large technology
platforms and really try to determine whether the existing
antitrust framework is sufficient to support competition in this
space," Mr. Cicilline said in an interview. "The antitrust statutes
were principally written more than 100 years ago for the railroads
and oil barons -- we have a very different economy today."
Among the questions the subcommittee will examine are whether
tech companies' market dominance has allowed them to exclude
rivals, engage in anticompetitive behavior, or favor their own
products and services, Mr. Cicilline said.
The panel will also consider whether the existing legal
framework has allowed tech companies to acquire rivals to
essentially create monopolies, he said. Big tech companies have
disputed that notion, contending that they operate in dynamic,
competitive markets while offering services that consumers
want.
(The scheduled witnesses for Tuesday's hearing include David
Pitofsky, general counsel and chief compliance officer of News
Corp, the parent company of The Wall Street Journal. News Corp has
been a critic of big tech firms' power in the online advertising
industry.)
Mr. Cicilline expects to conduct the investigation, prepare a
report and issue recommendations within this session of Congress,
or the next 18 months.
"Most of the Democrats arrive with very strong antitrust bones
in their bodies," said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.), a member of Mr.
Cicilline's antitrust subcommittee. "People want to make sure that
we don't end up with monopolies just through governmental
passivity."
The hearing marks the start of a bipartisan probe being
conducted by the committee at the center of a separate political
fight: whether to begin impeachment proceedings against President
Trump. On the same day as the antitrust hearing, the full House is
scheduled to vote on a measure setting in motion a legal process to
enforce subpoenas to Attorney General William Barr for the full
report from special counsel Robert Mueller and its underlying
evidence.
Mr. Cicilline in May became the highest-ranking Democrat to
publicly call for starting an impeachment inquiry, a stance not
shared by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) and opposed by
the Judiciary Committee's top Republican, Rep. Doug Collins of
Georgia.
But Messrs. Collins and Cicilline share more common ground when
it comes to tech companies and the role they now play in the
economy. Mr. Collins said he sees broad public interest in privacy
concerns related to how tech companies collect and manage user
data. He and Mr. Cicilline have also worked together on legislation
to allow local news outlets to negotiate with large online
platforms regarding how the news outlets' content is used.
"There are very legitimate questions on an industry that has
grown up in the last 15 to 20 years," Mr. Collins said.
Still, the two lawmakers might diverge on some of the tactics
deemed necessary to extract information from tech companies. Mr.
Cicilline has said he might issue subpoenas, though he hopes that
will be unnecessary. Mr. Collins has said he expects enough
participation from the companies to avoid subpoenas.
"Any talk of subpoenas is way premature," Mr. Collins said.
Mr. Cicilline said his legislative approach has been shaped in
part by his earlier legal career, in particular when he worked as a
plaintiffs lawyer suing police departments for allegedly violating
the civil rights of individuals.
"One of the things that has always informed my thinking is these
power dynamics between big powerful people and ordinary Americans,"
said Mr. Cicilline, who also served two terms as the mayor of
Providence, R.I.
Although he leads the Democratic Policy and Communications
Committee, which helps set messaging strategy ahead of the 2020
elections, Mr. Cicilline at times operates with a degree of
independence unusual among high-ranking Democrats.
After the 2016 elections, Mrs. Pelosi recommended a slate of
three candidates to lead the DPCC that didn't include Mr.
Cicilline. But when Democrats voted, Mr. Cicilline won one of the
three spots running the messaging group.
That might have left Mr. Cicilline less indebted to Mrs. Pelosi
and more willing to express his own opinions, including his mid-May
endorsement of starting an impeachment inquiry.
Although he hasn't backed down from that stance, Mr. Cicilline
took a more measured tone in a leadership meeting last week, when
he said Democrats should emphasize their legislative agenda and
oversight efforts, stressing that the president isn't above the
law.
"Everybody should heed your advice, including you," Mrs. Pelosi
said, according to a person in the room.
Mr. Cicilline said Mrs. Pelosi has always encouraged other
Democratic leaders to offer their own opinions and that his
position has been shaped in part by watching the White House rebuff
the Judiciary Committee's document and testimony requests.
"For members of the Judiciary Committee, because we live with it
every day, it's not surprising [that] I came to this conclusion
more quickly than some members of leadership not on Judiciary," he
said.
He and Mrs. Pelosi appear closely in line, however, on the
antitrust investigation. Mrs. Pelosi last week tweeted out her
support for the antitrust panel's "long overdue investigation to
determine if dominant digital platforms have harmed Americans in
the marketplace & the voting booth," and that for giant tech
companies, "the era of self-regulation is over."
Still, there is some skepticism even among critics of tech
companies over how much the House investigation can accomplish,
compared to the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission
inquiries.
"I'm glad that they're asking questions about it," Sen. Josh
Hawley (R., Mo.) said of the House probe. However, he said, "only
the law-enforcement agencies can actually do anything with real
teeth."
--Brent Kendall contributed to this article.
Write to Kristina Peterson at kristina.peterson@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 10, 2019 10:36 ET (14:36 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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