A group of watchdog organizations are calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to probe Alphabet. The tech fairness and antitrust advocates want the DoJ to determine whether YouTube‘s parent company uses anticompetitive tactics to dominate viewership on TV screens.
In a letter sent to DoJ antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter, a coalition of 11 regulatory groups expressed concerns about Alphabet’s growing market share on TV screens. The letter argues that YouTube improves its “prospects for living room dominance” through questionable means.
The pre-installation of YouTube on smartphones and smart TVs drew particular condemnation from the watchdogs. “YouTube has a decade-long record of using its dominance across numerous markets to crowd out competitors, lock in customers, and force the purchase of bundled services,” reads the letter.
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YouTube’s prowess among TV consumers is not in dispute. Earlier this year, the platform announced that it gets one billion hours of watch time per day on TVs. To support growth in that area, YouTube has introduced new products (such as a resized video player for Shorts) while hyping its TV viewership during its annual Brandcast presentations in New York.
“Anyone looking for something to watch can see this space is very competitive,” a YouTube spokesperson stated in response to the DoJ letter.
This is not the first time that third-party groups have attempted to rein in YouTube by casting its parent company as an anti-competitive monopoly. In this case, however, the pressure isn’t coming from conservative groups. The watchdogs that beseeched the DoJ include the antitrust specialists at the American Economic Liberties Project as well as Demand Progress, which champions the open-internet ethos of Reddit Co-Founder Aaron Swartz.
The DoJ could choose to listen to these alarm bells, but it already has its hands full with a different video platform. The federal department is preparing for legal battles against TikTok and its creator community, both of which are challenging a new law that could force a ban or divestment of the popular app.
