Justice taking an antitrust look at Big Tech
Agency doesn’t name specific companies in its announcement
WASHINGTON — Like Europe before it, the U.S. government looks ready to try reining in its technology giants. But doing so may be more difficult than it seems.
The U.S. Department of Justice said this week it has begun a sweeping antitrust investigation of major tech companies and whether their online platforms have hurt competition, suppressed innovation or otherwise harmed consumers. It said the probe will take into account “widespread concerns” about social media, search engines and online retail services.
“Without the discipline of meaningful market-based competition, digital platforms may act in ways that are not responsive to consumer demands,” Makan Delrahim, the department’s chief antitrust officer, said in a statement. “The department’s antitrust review will explore these important issues.”
The announcement follows months of concern in Congress and elsewhere over the sway of firms like Google, Facebook and Amazon. Lawmakers and Democratic presidential candidates have called for stricter regulation or even breakups of the big tech companies. They have drawn intense scrutiny following scandals involving compromised user privacy, security lapses and misinformation and extremism that flourished on their platforms.
Facebook received a significant judgment Wednesday from the Federal Trade Commission over its data privacy practices. The FTC also reportedly plans to hand Google a multimillion dollar fine over its handling of children’s information on YouTube. Europe has investigated and fined a number of major U.S. tech companies over the past several years.
But Big Tech could also present a difficult target, as current interpretations of U.S. antitrust law don’t obviously apply to companies offering inexpensive goods or free online services.
Justice did not name specific companies in its announcement.