Rep. David Cicilline, D-Rhode Island, chairman of the House Judiciary Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee, makes an opening statement during a hearing in Washington, D.C., on March 12, 2019. Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Congress is looking into big tech's market dominance with an antitrust probe launched by the House Judiciary Committee on Monday.

The Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law, chaired by Rep. David Cicilline, D-Rhode Island, will conduct a “top-to-bottom review” of a small group of dominant tech platforms that could have the “incentive and ability to harm the competitive process.” The bipartisan investigation will include a series of hearings held by the subcommittee and requests for relevant information.

“After four decades of weak antitrust enforcement and judicial hostility to antitrust cases, it is vital for Congress to step in to determine whether existing laws are adequate to tackle abusive conduct by platform gatekeepers or if we need new legislation,” Cicilline said in a press release Monday.

Congress' investigation comes as Silicon Valley's biggest players—Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple—face increased antitrust scrutiny at home and in Europe. On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal reported the Department of Justice is preparing for an antitrust investigation of Mountain View, California-based Google.

In March, presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, outlined her plan to “break up the biggest tech companies,” including Facebook, Google and Amazon.

In the past year, Google has been hit with billions in antitrust-related fines in the European Union, where Google and Apple have also faced complaints. The EU's General Data Protection Regulation, which went into effect last year, has drawn increased attention to tech companies' data use, with some regulators concerned that big tech companies' access to consumer data provides an unfair advantage. Concerns over app store dominance and ad revenue have also been raised.

House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-New York, said the investigation stems from concerns that “a handful of gatekeepers have come to capture control over key arteries of online commerce, content, and communications.”

“The Committee has a rich tradition of conducting studies and investigations to assess the threat of monopoly power in the U.S. economy,” Nadler said in a press release. “Given the growing tide of concentration and consolidation across our economy, it is vital that we investigate the current state of competition in digital markets and the health of the antitrust laws.”

Reps. Doug Collins, R-Georgia, and Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, also backed the investigation. Sensenbrenner said Congress “must discuss how the regulatory framework is built to ensure fairness and competition” in the digital marketplace.