stacy y mitchell, urur response? >> it isis simply not true that merchants have other options.mazon, one out of every two dollars spent online, and huge of shopping search. the next one is ebay at about 6%. from there.ops off i interviewed lots of sellers and the consnsistently tell me amazon is the main deal. there's really nowowhere else. and inincreasingly, more and moe over time, particucularly as pre emerson's grow, alexa becomes the voice interface for a lot of homes, people are dedefaulting more and more to amazonon this is a different sort of company. this is an infrastructure company like a railroad or telephohone system. that requires a different kind of obligation, different set of rules that need to go along with that. juan: i i want to ask you about that. the comparison to the railroad. should part of the legislative reform be to consider them a common carrier, where they could not necessarily discriminate by one particular company whose product ththey cararry versus ananother? >> that't's right. i believeve that is one of the ideas in the mix here is ththate need

the third witness on our panel is stacy mitchell, co-director of the institute for local self reliance. she spent years working with policymakers and grassroots organizations to help develop city, state, and federal policies to strengthen independent business and curb corporate power. ms. mitchell has appeared in publications like the nation, the atlantic, and the wall street journal and her works have had a significant influence around discussions around corporate consolidation. her paper, antitrust, earned her recognition in 2017 as part of the jerry s. cohen award for antitrust scholarship. she serves on the board of the maine center for economic policy. our fourth witness is maureen ohlhausen, a partner at baker botts llp. she led the federal trade commission as acting commissioner. she directed all aspects of their antitrust work. she's published dozens of articles on antitrust, privacy, ip, regulation, telecommunications and international law issues. she has particular expertise on privacy issues. she has received numerous awards for her work and scholarship. she received her ba

yesterday i spoke with one of those witnesses, stacy mitchell, she researched amazon's effect on competitionn local markets. she said lawmakers are look at how to change the structure of these companies so that smaller firms can better compete for facebook or google that could mean spinoffs of wathatsa and youtube. we heard about fees charged to developers in the app store. another topic will likely be the expected $5 billion fine agains facebook for privacy violations. the chairman of the submiti iti subcommittee said the fine will do nothing to stop the behavior and better protect users data. >> so, while we have you here, elizabeth, the other major hearing on the until with regard to big tech is about facebook and its planned libra digital currency we heard from steven mnuchin yesterday sharing his concerns over the cryptocurrency in the space in general here's what he to say. >> the treasury department has expressed very serious concerns that libra could be misused by money launderers and terrorists and financiers we will not allow digital asset service providers to operate in the shadow

stacy mitchell of the institute for local-- will testify and i quote powerful online gatekeepers not only control market access but directly compete with businesses that depend on them undermining entrepreneurship and economic opportunity. this trend is not compatible with open internet or defining features that have allowed entrepreneurship to flourish. as was testified today the united states is at risk of losing our best innovation and being a country of giant lumbering concerns where incremental improvement is the norm and were innovators dream of being bought and not of building something of their own. most importantly for purposes of today's hearing, the trend is not the inevitable consequence of technological progress. it's the result of policy choices we are making as a country. the largest technology firms have required over 436 companies, many of which were actual or potential competitors. according to the new york time counterpart, the companies that google has required, 171 include potential competitors, and 46 involved actual or potential competitors. not a single one wa