The FTC went to Silicon Valley to solicit antitrust complaints

The FTC has sent top antitrust officials to the heart of Silicon Valley to collect complaints about anti-competitive behavior, an unusual move that gives further indication of the government's growing interest in policing Giants' giants. industry.

The weeklong tour included private meetings between leaders of the new FTC Technology Working Group and more than a dozen industry players to discuss the status of their activities and competition in the market, an official from FTC informed POLITICO about the situation. During the same trip, the head of the FTC Competition Bureau directly invited participants to an antitrust conference in Palo Alto, California, to present any evidence of anti-competitive merger in the technology sector, according to one copy. of his remarks.

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Outreach – details not previously reported – comes as the FTC and the Department of Justice show a keen interest in seriously looking into years of complaints about the dominant role played by companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon. slices of the economy and the daily lives of Americans. These include the disclosure over the past week of an agreement in which the Justice Department has declared itself competent for any potential antitrust investigation from Google and Apple, while the FTC would be free to do the same with Facebook and Amazon.

Neither agency has announced its intention to open an antitrust investigation, but such discussions may be the first step towards an active investigation. The FTC also spent last year to open an investigation into alleged breaches of privacy by Facebook, which is expected to be fined up to $ 5 billion.

The FTC's outreach to the May 22 Palo Alto conference, organized by Global Competition Review, was a visible sign of the Commission's approach to anti-trust legislation after the creation of the Task Force. on technology in February. The 17-member working group, composed primarily of FTC staff members, is mandated to investigate anti-competitive behavior and review previously approved mergers.

Bruce Hoffman, director of the FTC's Competition Bureau, told attendees at the Palo Alto event that the agency would "stay tuned" to learn about mergers and other anti-competitive behavior that might not reach the officials in Washington. Hoffman said he was aware of fears that big companies would buy potential rivals to avoid competition, but he has not yet found good economic evidence of a widespread problem.

"We need your help," Hoffman told the meeting. "The players in these different industries may be better placed to identify problematic acquisitions and bring them to our attention."

Patricia Galvan, who heads the FTC working group, addressed a panel at the same conference. Two other unit leaders, Gail Levine and Krisha Cerilli, were also in Silicon Valley at the time, according to current and former FTC officials. with the trip. They met privately with industry players for several days around the conference, said officials, who described the meetings as listening sessions.

The current FTC official told POLITICO that competition officials rarely traveled outside of Washington to hear from industry participants and that the working group's participation in the Palo Alto antitrust conference offered opportunity to hold such meetings in the country's technological capital.

"Because small businesses and investors fear retaliation or any form of financial harm by expressing it, it is important that antitrust authorities come closer and help complainants to present their information confidentially, under the government protection. It seems that the FTC allows this type of behavior, "said Gene Kimmelman, a former DOJ official who now heads the Public Knowledge advocacy group.

Former FTC chairman William Kovacic, a Republican, said the agency was undoubtedly under political pressure to act in the face of Washington's growing disgust for big tech companies.

"This working group will be the group that will lead the new cases, and you can not imagine making a basic decision about which companies to engage without consulting [the task force]Kovacic said.

"You will be measured by what you deliver for this type of problem," he added. "Creating the workgroup is pushing you in the direction of doing something."

The FTC has long been known for its reluctance to offer aggressive surveillance to major research groups, social networks and online commerce, even as they dominate more and more of the US and global economies.

Under the Obama administration, the FTC investigated Google's search practices but closed the case in 2013 without taking any coercive action, which drew criticism from the agency. Two years later, the Wall Street Journal reported that the FTC staff had wanted to start an anti-trust lawsuit against Google, but that the commissioners had to slaughter this idea.

This left the field of antitrust enforcement largely in the hands of European regulators, who inflicted Google penalties amounting to nearly $ 10 billion. But last year showed signs that the FTC is more and more interested in trying new technologies.

This includes the FTC's negotiation of a possible data privacy regulation with Facebook, with a potential fine of up to $ 5 billion, which would be the largest in its history. The investigation sparked last year's revelation that Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm that worked for President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, had improperly obtained personal information on tens of millions of Internet users. Facebook.

The FTC has also been more stubborn in antitrust: last month, it was successful against the semiconductor giant Qualcomm, accusing the company of being engaged in behavior anti-competitive in order to maintain the monopoly of certain processors used in mobile phones. Qualcomm appeals the decision.

Critics in the tech industry have already come up with ideas on how the Commission should pursue its next goals, including a potential Amazon antitrust investigation.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) Proposed a bill as part of her 2020 presidential campaign banning companies like Amazon from selling goods in a digital market they control, claiming it gives them an edge unfair on other merchants on the platform. Amazon has denied any involvement in such conduct and claims that its e-commerce business is helping small businesses attract more customers.

Amazon is also rapidly developing in other industries, often through acquisitions such as its purchase of the Whole Foods grocery chain, approved by the FTC. , in 2017. Its lucrative division, Amazon Web Services, is one of the leading providers of cloud computing services to businesses and governments. it goes from data storage to facial recognition software.