Antitrust Chief Rips Google and Amazon, Citing Historic Breakups
- Makan Delrahim compares technology giants to Standard Oil
- U.S. antitrust law can consider harm to innovation, he says
Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg
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The Justice Department’s antitrust chief came out swinging against Google and Amazon on Tuesday, arguing big technology companies are "digital gatekeepers" that may struggle to defend themselves by arguing their products are free or really cheap.
Makan Delrahim, who recently launched a probe of the industry, compared the digital giants to previous companies that the U.S. government broke up, such as Standard Oil, and defended the power of antitrust laws to police anticompetitive conduct in the tech sector, such as agreements to bundle products.