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The moment of counting of Big Tech has finally arrived.
After years of expansion and disruption, while they seemed to escape regulatory control relatively unscathed in the United States, the world's most powerful technology companies are suddenly facing the cannon of a bipartite firearm that could seriously slow down their growth, subjecting them to invasive probes. with new regulations and potentially force them to separate.
In recent days, antitrust investigators from the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department have targeted four of Silicon Valley's biggest players: Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple. The two US agencies reportedly decided to split up to rule, with the Justice Department having opened the investigation on Google, while the FTC should review Amazon's practices.
According to rumors, Facebook, which had reached an agreement with the FTC in 2011, would be on the verge of concluding a new contract with the agency that would impose him billions of fines and new regulatory oversight of life private. Apple would report to the Department of Justice, which has a history with the Cupertino company in California. The Justice Department found in 2014 that Apple had engaged in a conspiracy with five publishers in order to increase the price of ebooks, which ultimately cost $ 450 million to the society.
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"This is more of a warning to companies that they need to be scrutinized and that they should be careful not to play too fast given their dominant market positions. digital, "said Gene Kimmelman, former senior antitrust justice official. Department who is now chairman of the Public Knowledge consumer group, told the New York Times.
From left to right: Apple CEO Tim Cook, CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Big Tech is facing a regulatory regulation.
The antitrust review comes as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle pledged to limit the power of Big Tech, which, according to critics, has stifled competition and innovation while allowing the spread of misinformation and hate speech. A number of Democrats who ran for the 2020 presidential nomination called for greater regulation of Silicon Valley, but Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Introduced the most aggressive proposal of dismantling several giants of technology for antitrust reasons.
The House Judiciary Committee announced Monday a two-party inquiry that will use the power of subpoenas and public testimony to focus on three key areas: the documentation of competition issues in digital markets; examine whether dominant firms engage in anti-competitive behavior; and assess whether antitrust laws, competition policies and current levels of enforcement are adequate to solve problems.
"Concentrated and unjustified economic power in the hands of the few is dangerous for democracy, especially when digital platforms control the content.The era of self-regulation is over," said the President of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, in a statement posted on Twitter. , adding that the probe is "long overdue".
Shares of Facebook and Alphabet, which belongs to Google, both fell on Monday, driving the Nasdaq Composite Index into correcting territory.
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"Technology has become a crucial part of Americans' daily lives," said Jim Sensenbrenner, a member of the Antitrust Subcommittee's classification in a statement. "As the world becomes more and more dependent on the digital market, we need to discuss how the regulatory framework is built to ensure fairness and competition."
The technology sector spent $ 77.9 million lobbying US lawmakers in 2018, up from $ 16.4 million a decade earlier, reports the Wall Street Journal. Google and Amazon have also funded more than 30 non-profit groups, including left-wing and right-wing think tanks, who have their say in the public debate on antitrust, according to the newspaper.
However, all this money may not be enough to prevent regulators and investigators.
Some people familiar with the investigations told Reuters that neither the Ministry of Justice nor the FTC had contacted Google or Amazon about possible investigations, and their leaders were unaware of the issues being addressed by regulators .
The world's largest online retailer, Amazon, has had to deal with the heat that it exerts on the third-party sellers of its platform. The Seattle-based technology giant has also been criticized for causing damage to traditional retailers, although government regulators have approved its purchase of Whole Foods in 2017.
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Apple is being screened by the European Union following a complaint from the streaming music company Spotify that Apple allegedly abused its power over downloading apps. Although Apple has often touted the privacy of its hardware and taken subtle clichés on Facebook, a new report suggests that a series of different iPhone applications send user information to third parties. The company led by Tim Cook recently announced that she is killing iTunes.
In April, Facebook announced a fine of up to $ 5 billion from the FTC, which was investigating the role of the social network in sharing data from 87 million of its users with the company. 39 Cambridge Analytica Data Extraction. The company Menlo Park, California, which also owns WhatsApp and Instagram, has been criticized by critics for the proliferation of false information on its platform.
"We are still waiting for the long-awaited action of the FTC regarding Facebook's violated consent decree," said Sarah Miller, co-chair of Freedom From Facebook, a group that called for the breakdown of the social network, Fox said in a statement to Fox News by email. "The violation of the consent decree by Facebook already gives the FTC a reason to break Facebook's monopoly, and they should do so. But a potentially broader antitrust investigation is also long overdue. "
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The FTC had previously scolded a Google investigation in 2013, but the company headed by Sundar Pichai has been repeatedly fined by European regulators in recent years for anti-competitive practices. According to the eMarketer advertising research firm, Google is expected to capture 37% of the $ 129 billion spent on online advertising in the United States in 2019, compared to 22% for Facebook and 10% for Amazon.
"After four decades of weak antitrust enforcement and judicial hostility to antitrust cases, it is essential that Congress intervene to determine whether existing laws are sufficient to fight code-keepers. abusive conduct or where we need new legislation, "said David Cicilline, chair of the Antitrust Subcommittee. , D-RI, in a statement.
However, not everyone agrees that the largest technology companies in Silicon Valley should be decoupled.
"The Google Justice Department's investigation will lead to the same conclusion as that of the FTC in 2013, namely that there is no antitrust case," said Carl Szabo, vice President of NetChoice, a trade association specializing in e-commerce, in a statement to Fox News. . "It makes no sense for the Justice Department to investigate competition in the same market as its competitors, Amazon, Apple and Google compete in a dynamic and competitive marketplace."
Google, Facebook and Amazon have not commented on the recording of this story. Fox News has also contacted Apple.
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