Following a 60 Minutes segment that portrayed Google as a monopolistic power, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said he hopes the U.S. Department of Justice “takes a serious look” at the power wielded by tech giants.
While speaking to Squawk Box, Mnuchin said, “I think these are issues that the Justice Department needs to look at seriously. Not for any one company, but obviously as these technology companies have a greater and greater impact on the economy, I think that you have to look at the power they have and it’s something that the Justice Department, I hope, takes a serious look at without me making any comments as to whether they should be or shouldn’t be. But these issues deserve to be reviewed carefully.”
Mnuchin’s comments come after the Yelp co-founder Jeremy Stoppelman told 60 Minutes that if he were trying to start Yelp today, he would not have been able to because of Google.
“They will make you disappear. They will bury you,” Stoppelman said.
The Senior Vice President of Public Policy at Yelp, Luther Lowe, has since shared Mnuchin’s comments on his Twitter page.
