New York/London: Senior US figures have welcomed the Australian competition regulator’s controversial push to curtail the power of tech giants Google and Facebook and predict many of the ACCC’s recommendations will be followed in other parts of the world.

Tom Wheeler, the former head of the Federal Communications Commission, which oversees US media and telecommunications companies, said American politicians and regulators would be "crazy" to ignore the recommendations in the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission report released this week.

ACCC Chair Rod Sims arrives to speak to the media about the release of the preliminary report of the Digital Platforms Inquiry. Credit:AAP

Former Obama administration official Dipayan Ghosh, who served as privacy and public policy adviser at Facebook, said the report was already being shared and discussed by members of the US tech policy community.

And in the UK, the 378-page report drew enthusiastic approval from Conservative MP Damian Collins, chair of the UK parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee, who “absolutely agreed” with the ACCC that the era of self-regulation for tech companies should end.