The United States is moving toward major antitrust probes of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google
(Reuters) – The US government aims to investigate whether Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google are abusing their huge market power, sources said Reuters on Monday and setting up what could be an unprecedented, broad probe of some of the world's largest companies.
The Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department, which enforce US antitrust laws, have overseen the four companies, said two sources, with Amazon and Facebook under the supervision of the FTC, and Apple and Google under the Justice Department.
With jurisdiction established, the next step for the two federal agencies is to decide whether to open formal investigations. The results are not likely to be fast. A previous Google FTC probe took more than two years.
Technology companies are facing a setback in the United States and worldwide, driven by concerns among competitors, lawmakers and consumer groups that businesses have too much power and rivals users and businesses.
Shares of Facebook fell 7.5% on Monday while Google's owner Alphabet threw more than 6%. Amazon.com shares fell 4.6% and Apple dipped 1[ads1]%.
The Ministry of Justice and the FTC generally do not discuss investigations.
U.S. President Donald Trump has asked for closer scrutiny of social media and Google, accusing them of suppressing online conservative votes without showing any evidence.
He has repeatedly criticized Amazon for exploiting the US postal service, even without evidence. Trump has often targeted Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, a newspaper that often criticizes Trump.
Lawmakers weighs
Leading legislators on both sides at one time welcomed potential surveys of big tech companies.
Senate Judge Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, a Republican, told Reuters that the business model of companies like Google and Facebook needs to be investigated. "It has so much power and so unregulated," he said. Another Republican, Senator Marsha Blackburn, said the panel would do what she called a "deeper dive" into big tech companies.
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, who said on Monday that US enforcers must do more than twist their hands on the company's complaint, also weighed in.
"Their robbery seizes on rigorous and rigorous investigation and anti-terrorism," wrote the Connecticut Senator on Twitter.
Separately, the Supervisory Board's Rights Committee conducted its own competition survey in digital markets, with both Republicans and Democrats expressing concern about the power of tech giants.
News broke on Friday that the Justice Department laid the foundations for investigating Google to determine whether the world's largest online advertising platform used the size to squeeze out smaller competitors, breaking laws designed to ensure fair competition. The company refused comment on Monday.
The Washington Post reported Saturday that Amazon would come under the FTC's mission in some probe. Amazon declined comment on Monday.
People who are informed of the case say that neither the Ministry of Justice nor the FTC have contacted Google or Amazon for any probes, and that the company's executives are not aware of the issues the regulators are considering.
Apple and Facebook Don't immediately answer a request for comment on Monday.
Regulatory Review
While the four technology companies, all worth hundreds of billions of dollars, have drawn control from regulators and lawmakers worldwide, it was not clear what the US Department of Justice or the FTC planned to focus on.
Amazon, the world's largest online store, has been criticized for holding over third-party sellers on its website, who have to pay for advertising to compete against first-party and private label sales by Amazon itself. Lawmakers have also claimed that Amazon's low prices have damaged brick retailers, many of which have closed because they could not compete.
Apple is subject to an EU investigation of a complaint from streaming music provider Spotify that Apple is abusing its power over app downloads. In 2014, the iPhone manufacturer resigned a trial lawsuit claiming that it interacts with publishers to increase the price of e-books.
The FTC has already investigated Facebook's sharing of data belonging to 87 million users with the newly-defined British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. Facebook said in April that it is expected to be fined up to $ 5 billion by the regulator.
Facebook, which owns one-time rivals Instagram and WhatsApp, has over 1.5 billion daily users, has great influence in many countries and has been criticized for allowing misleading posts and so-called "false news" for its service.
Google has faced accusations that the online search service, which has become so dominant that it is now a verb, leads consumers to their own products at the cost of competitors.
FTC issued a survey by Google in 2013 with a reprimand. The company has been fined several times by the European Union's competitor regulator, most recently in March for 1.5 billion euros ($ 1.7 billion) in a case targeting illegal practices in brokerage mediation from 2006 to 2016.
Legal experts have said the United States regulators are not likely to attempt to break up the technology giants.
It is rare to break up a company, but not unusual, with Standard Oil and AT&T being two of the biggest examples. US antitrust probes more often provide an agreement to change certain business practices.
