Washington (AFP)

Facebook should resell Instagram, Google separate from YouTube and Amazon no longer promote its own products on its platform: for some American elected officials, this is the only way to prevent the abuse of a dominant position of which they accuse the Gafa (Google, Apple , Facebook and Amazon).

The tech giants have "their own private quasi-regulation that only applies to themselves", say Democratic parliamentarians, in a report released Tuesday, after more than 15 months of investigation and hearings with the heads of the four companies.

"To put it simply, these giants that were once small start-ups, challenging the status quo, have become the kind of monopolies we haven't seen since the era of oil barons and road tycoons. iron ", they insist in the introduction to the 449-page document.

These elected representatives of the House of Representatives therefore call for "structural separations to prevent these platforms from operating in sectors of activity that depend on or interact with it".

In particular, they want to put an end to situations where a company is both judge and party - like Apple on the App Store, its mobile application store or Amazon on its online sales platform.

"Large companies are not dominant by definition, and the assumption that success can only be the result of anti-competitive behavior is simply false," said the e-commerce giant in a communicated on his blog.

- Who benefits from the acquisition -

The debate returns more and more frequently in the United States, as discontent grows against the Gafa, always richer and more powerful.

The pandemic and the Great Containment have even strengthened them, while large companies in other sectors have had to lay off thousands of people.

But their economic power, the tech companies "have increased and exploited in the financial markets in a non-competitive way", affirm the chairmen of the judicial committee Jerry Nadler, and that of the antitrust subcommittee David Cicilline, in A press release.

The report recommends that the platforms allow "interoperability" with their competitors' equipment and the establishment of a "standard" to prohibit acquisitions that harm competition.

This measure targets Facebook in particular, whose boss, Mark Zuckerberg was questioned at length about the acquisition of Instagram at the end of July, during a hearing of the leaders of the four groups by the commission.

"Facebook saw Instagram as a threat (...), so (...) they bought them," had hammered Jerry Nadler, criticizing the lack of competition in the social networking market.

The report produced by the team of the judicial commission was not however validated by its Republican members, and the recommended measures should not even be examined in the Senate, controlled by the Republicans.

This underlines the differences between the two parties, which often jointly criticize the tech giants but for different reasons.

- "1%" -

"Unfortunately this report partisan of the Democrats (...) makes radical proposals", commented the elected Republican Jim Jordan, evoking a "vision of the extreme left".

Matt Schruers of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, which brings together most of the big companies in the sector, believes elected officials have failed to understand the digital economy.

"If it is just about hitting successful American companies, then maybe this plan will score points," he commented.

In its argument, Amazon points out that it represents "only 1% of the 25 trillion dollars of the global distribution market and less than 4% of the distribution in the United States".

According to the Seattle group, the report's proposals would force third-party vendors to leave the platform, and therefore lose visibility, ultimately threatening SME jobs and reducing competition, to the detriment of consumers.

But the Democrats' report appeared to satisfy Athena, a collective of anti-Amazon organizations.

"This survey shows how Amazon and the Big Tech + don't care about the fundamental principles of our democracy," commented Dania Rajendra, director of the group, in a statement.

According to her, "the American public now expects our elected officials to follow this report with a law to divide Amazon and rewrite anti-monopoly rules, so that workers are not sacrificed for Amazon's profits," a- she added.

Several antitrust investigations are still ongoing, at the federal government and state levels.

© 2020 AFP