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President Donald Trump responds to a media question as he leaves the White House on November 4 en route to gatherings in Macon, Georgia, and Chattanooga, Tennessee (Jacquelyn Martin / AP)
Brian Fung
Political reporter specialized in telecommunications, media, crypto-currencies and competition
The federal government continues to study Silicon Valley giants in search of potential breaches of competition law, according to President Trump, in his latest critique of the technology sector in crisis.
"I'm responsible," he said in an interview with Axios, aired Sunday on HBO. "I'm definitely in charge, and we're watching."
Axios asked Axios to clarify which companies the Trump administration was considering and said: "All three," referring to Amazon.com, Facebook, and Google.
(Jeffrey P. Bezos, chief executive of Amazon, also owns the Washington Post.)
For months, the government has been investigating whether the country's antitrust laws could be applied to technology platforms.
During the interview, Trump asserted that a previous administration had considered dismantling key players in the technology sector. However, while the Federal Trade Commission had investigated Google under the Obama administration on how the company was displaying its search results, the agency had concluded that it had not been there. there was no violation of antitrust laws – and did not weigh anything.
Some, such as Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), have asked the FTC to reopen its investigation on Google.
[Sen. Orrin Hatch wants the FTC to investigate Google]
In September, the Department of Justice held a meeting with state attorneys general to determine whether the behavior of technology companies might have violated antitrust law. State officials waved the banner, paving the way for an investigation in several states. But these discussions are still in their infancy.
Makan Delrahim, the chief antitrust officer at Trump's Justice Ministry, wondered whether there is enough economic evidence to prove that technology companies are hurting competition or innovation.
And the Federal Trade Commission has held hearings on the subject this fall, although experts at the conference are widely divided on whether or not technology platforms pose an antitrust problem.
[Are Google and Facebook too powerful? Washington: ¯_(ツ)_/¯]
The European Union has been more aggressive than US regulators. In recent months, the European competition authorities have fined Google $ 5 billion for marketing its own applications in an allegedly anti-competitive manner, prompting Google to stop consolidating its browser and search engine with the Google Play store in Europe. The European Union's competition regulator has also targeted Apple for alleged tax fraud and Facebook for providing "misleading" information on its WhatsApp purchase agreement.
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