US Attorney General Barr's confirmation hearing offers clues to the direction of the Department of Justice's new probe into Big Tech

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US Attorney General Barr's confirmation hearing offers clues to the direction of the Department of Justice's new probe into Big Tech

Attorney General William Barr speaks about the census as Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross listens during an event with President Donald Trump in the Rose Garden at the White House, Thursday, July 11, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Associated Press

Attorney General William Barr speaks about the census as Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross listens during an event with President Donald Trump in the Rose Garden at the White House, Thursday, July 11, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

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  • The US Department of Justice has launched a probe into big tech companies and antitrust.
  • At a confirmation hearing in January 2019, US Attorney General William Barr was quizzed about the subject by senators.
  • His answers offers clues as to his views and areas of interest on the subject, which may help guide the DoJ's review.
  • Barr said he was keen to learn about how tech's "huge behemoths" reached their current size and used "network effects" to reinforce their dominance.
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

At his confirmation hearing in January 2019, United States Attorney General William Barr called for scrutiny over how the technology industry's "huge behemoths" reached their current size and used "network effects" to reinforce their dominance.

Now, fast forward to Tuesday, when the US Department of Justice 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."

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The announcement does not single out specific companies, but appears to be referring to the likes of Facebook, Amazon, Google (all of whose stock dropped in after-hours trading on the news) - and it adds renewed significance to Barr's answers to senators' questions on the subject of competition law and the tech sector earlier this year.

The 69-year-old lawyer and politician's remarks offer clues as to particular areas of interest for him around the tech sector, that may potentially guide the Department of Justice's probe of the companies' practices in the weeks and months ahead.

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Barr has concerns about the 'network effects' enjoyed by big tech firms

One area that Barr identified in his confirmation hearing as something he's "concerned" about is the "network effects" of big tech companies - the process by which a service's growth or users continually reinforces its strength, potentially to the detriment of others in the market.

"The thing I'm concerned about are the network effects that are now at work where they're so powerful that particular sectors could essentially be subsumed into these networks," he said.

Barr doesn't think allegations of anti-conservative bias are an antitrust matter

Some of the right have argued, without providing clear evidence, that tech companies like Facebook and Google are deliberately biased against conservatives. It's a claim that President Donald Trump has raised - but even if the administration pursued it, it probably wouldn't be through this antitrust lens.

In response to a question from Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), Barr indicated that he didn't think it fell under the remit of antitrust: "I would just say generally, you know, I wouldn't think it would. I'd have ot think long and hard before I said it was really the stuff of an antitrust matter. On the other hand, it could involve issues of disclosure, and implicate other laws like that."

He wants to 'protect competition'

A question from Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) about the purpose of antitrust action gave Barr opportunity to detail the cases in which he believes it should be deployed.

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Lee asked: "There are a growing number of people who take the position ... that we should use antitrust law to address a whole host of social and economic harms, to among other things to ensure that companies respect the first amendment or prevent large companies becoming too big .. are you a believer in the sort of 'big is bad' mentality of do you gravitate more towards the idea that our antitrust laws are to protect consumers and should focus on consumer welfare and prices that consumers face?"

Barr answered: "Yes, generally, that's where I stand, which is the purpose of antitrust laws, obviously, is to protect competition, and it is competition to consumer benefits. At the same time, I'm sort of interested in stepping back and reassessing or learning more about how the antitrust division has been functioning and what their priorities are."

A key question: How did tech companies get so big?

One key query for Barr, he said in response to a question from Lee, is how today's tech giants grew to their current size and how they were overseen by antitrust regulators as they did so.

"I don't think big is necessarily bad but I think a lot of people wonder how such huge behemoths that now exist in Silicon Valley have taken shape under the nose of the antitrust enforcers," he said. "You can with this place in the marketplace without violating the antitrust laws. But I want to find out more about that dynamic."


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