Elizabeth Warren: Apple, Google And Amazon Threaten Our Democracy - Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN)

Elizabeth Warren's name has been thrown around as a potential running mate to Hillary Clinton. However, Warren's name made the headlines on Thursday for a different reason as she attacked

Apple Inc.AAPL

Alphabet IncGOOGGOOGL

and

Amazon.com, Inc.

AMZN

for abusing power and unfairly blocking new companies from entering the market.

"The decline in competition should cause concern [because] big guys can lock out smaller guys and newer guys," the Democratic senator from Massachusetts said. "Take a look at the technology sector — specifically, the battle between large platforms and small tech companies."

The Accusations

Warren singled out Apple Music as a big offender. She said that while Apple Music is easily available on any of its "iDevices," Apple has placed conditions on its rivals that "make it difficult for them to offer competitive streaming services."

Warren also suggested Amazon uses its market-leading status as a bookseller to "steer consumers to books published by Amazon to the detriment of other publishers." Similarly, Google uses its dominant search engine to "harm rivals."

"Anyone who loves markets knows that for markets to work, there has to be competition," she also said. "But today, in America, competition is dying. Consolidation and concentration are on the rise in sector after sector. Concentration threatens our markets, threatens our economy, and threatens our democracy."

A complete copy of Warren's speech has been posted by Business Insider.

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