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Senators, regulators spar over how to rein in big tech

U.S. senators from both political parties expressed frustration with the state of antitrust enforcement against large technology companies at a Sept. 17 hearing where agency heads acknowledged ongoing investigations but offered few new details.

Joseph Simons, chairman of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, and Makan Delrahim, head of the U.S. Department of Justice's antitrust division, both testified at the Senate Committee on the Judiciary subcommittee hearing that confusion about which agency should investigate certain antitrust matters has impacted a few investigations, though they did not specify which cases.

Delrahim added that he "cannot deny that there are instances" where both his time and Simons' time is wasted on squabbles over antitrust jurisdiction.

Simons agreed that establishing appropriate jurisdiction has weighed on some inquiries.

In response to a question about whether Congress should clearly designate enforcement authority to one agency to improve collaboration, Delrahim said it would be "an appropriate area of inquiry" for the committee to examine.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who has been an outspoken critic of big tech, described the situation as "a culture of paralysis" and suggested that funding levels could be frozen until structural issues regarding which agency should oversee tech antitrust issues was resolved.

"I understand that both of you say that your respective agencies need more resources," Hawley said. "Until we can figure out some of these structural problems that you both alluded to, I don't know why we would spend more money to do things that frankly aren't getting results."

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., criticized the agency heads for failing to disclose new information about the state of antitrust investigations of Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google LLC.

"The fact that you're coming here without any specifics reinforces the impression that federal antitrust enforcement is an empty suit," Blumenthal said.

The FTC announced in February that it had formed a task force to monitor competition in U.S. technology markets. In July, Facebook disclosed that it was being investigated by the FTC for antitrust concerns, shortly after it agreed to pay a $5 billion fine to settle FTC-documented privacy violations.

Additionally, the FTC has started interviewing sellers on Amazon.com Inc.'s e-commerce platform as part of an investigation into the company's power over competition, Bloomberg News reported Sept. 11.

In July, the DOJ announced an antitrust review into "whether and how market-leading online platforms have achieved market power and are engaging in practices that have reduced competition, stifled innovation, or otherwise harmed consumers."