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There is a force uniting the fierce partisan division of the country: the big tech companies. Democrats and Republicans at the federal and state levels come together to examine the power of technology giants and eventually to control them.
New York Attorney General Letitia James announced Friday that the attorneys general of eight states – four Democrats and four Republicans – and the District of Columbia had opened an antitrust investigation on Facebook.
The next step for state regulators is Google. Similarly, a bipartisan group led by eight attorneys general is expected to announce Monday a separate but comparable investigation. The research giant should be at the center of this investigation, according to two people close to the plan who spoke under the guise of anonymity before the official announcement.
State investigations coincide with the bipartite review of the Silicon Valley giants underway in Washington, by House and Senate committees, as well as by the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission.
"Something is happening that affects politics, a general concern about big techs and the need to investigate these companies," said Harry First, an antitrust expert at the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Law. New York.
"It remains to be seen if we see the beginning of the difficult work of a serious application or whether it is primarily a political theater," said Mr. First, former head of the New York Attorney General's Office. "But it's important because nothing will happen without political support."
In a statement Friday, Ms. James said, "Even the largest social media platform in the world must abide by the law and respect consumers." Along with Ms. James, the attorneys general of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and the District of Columbia.
"We will use all the survey tools at our disposal to determine whether Facebook's actions may have endangered consumer data, reduced the quality of consumer choices or increased the price of advertising," said Ms. James. .
In a statement, Will Castleberry, vice president of Facebook's national and local policies, said the company "will work constructively with state attorneys general, and we welcome an interview with decision makers on the Competitive environment in which we operate ".
A Google spokesman said in a statement: "We look forward to working with attorneys general to answer questions about our company and the dynamic technology sector."
An announcement that state officials would open An antitrust investigation on Facebook and other major technology companies was expected, although the timing was not clear. The Trade Commission and the Ministry of Justice have taken similar steps to examine how companies have gained market power and whether they have acted in a way that reduces competition.
The Congress explores the same issues, with officials from Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google – the four companies covered by the Justice Department report – appearing at an antitrust hearing in Washington in July. Another hearing is scheduled for next week.
State regulators, generally acting in concert with federal officials, can play an important role in major antitrust investigations. That was the case in the historical antitrust case against Microsoft, when 20 states joined the Department of Justice to sue the software giant in 1998.
Unlike this case, the current antitrust issues go far beyond a single company. The Department of Justice, for example, focuses on companies that operate in somewhat different markets and have come to dominate them, including Internet search, online advertising, e-commerce and social networking.
The US-led antitrust investigation once again places the social media giant at the center of regulators' concerns.
In July, the Federal Trade Commission voted to fine the company about $ 5 billion for mishandling users' personal information, the biggest penalty ever imposed by the agency on a technology company. Also in July, Facebook representatives had to face Congress for two days about a new cryptocurrency initiative called Libra.
The antitrust investigation conducted by the state on Facebook could evolve in many directions. This could, for example, align with the commercial commission's investigation, which aims to determine whether what critics have called Facebook's "serial defensive acquisitions program" has been used to maintain the dominance of the society in the social networking sector.
Facebook bought Instagram, the photo-sharing network, for $ 1 billion in 2012. Just two years later, Facebook was spending $ 19 billion for WhatsApp, a global email application used by over a billion of people.
Critics say that well before the two acquisitions, Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook and managing director, was keeping a close watch on young companies that could pose a threat to his business. Facebook has acquired more than 70 companies in about 15 years.
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