House panel demands tech company emails

Congress is ramping up the pressure on big tech, demanding a trove of documents from Facebook, Amazon, Alphabet and Apple as part of an anti-trust probe.

House lawmakers on Friday sent letters asking the four companies to turn over internal emails from CEOs Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Page - related to acquisitions.

Also requested: information from the executives on market share, their competitors and documents from other investigations.

SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) LOUISIANA ATTORNEY GENERAL JEFFREY LAND, SAYING:

"We are here because there is an absolutely existential threat in our virtual marketplace."

The letters come days after 50 attorneys general representing U.S states and territories banned together to officially launch a probe into whether search giant Google is abusing power as a monopoly.

Apple and Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment, while Amazon did not immediately comment.

Google pointed to a blog post issued this week that said its services "create choice for consumers."