US to open antitrust review of big tech firms

The United States Justice Department said on Tuesday that it was opening a large-scale antitrust investigation of big US tech firms.

The probe will look into “whether and how market-leading online platforms have achieved market power and are engaging in practices that have reduced competition, stifled innovation, or otherwise harmed consumers,” a Justice Department statement read.

It did not refer to any specific companies, but the Justice Department said the review would consider concerns raised about “search, social media, and some retail services online” — an apparent reference to Google’s parent company Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook and Apple.

“Without the discipline of meaningful market-based competition, digital platforms may act in ways that are not responsive to consumer demands,” said Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim, who is in charge of the department’s antitrust division. “The department’s antitrust review will explore these important issues.”

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  EU: the great antitrust busters

  Microsoft tread the Windows ledge

  In 2004, the European Commission finished a five-year investigation into Microsoft and concluded that the US tech giant had exploited a monopoly on PC operating systems. The fine was €497 million ($579 million). Within 90 days, Microsoft was obliged to offer a Windows product without its ‘Mediaplayer’ product.

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  EU: the great antitrust busters

  Another blow for Bill and Co

  In 2007, the European Commission went for Microsoft again, this time imposing a fine of €900 million. The reason was that they reckoned Microsoft had charged competitors unjustifably high license fees to avail of technical information. This violated previously agreed EU requirements.

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  EU: the great antitrust busters

  Intel Inside Job

  In 2009, a record fine was issued with the breaking of the €1 billion barrier. This time, it was the chipmaker Intel, fined €1.06 billion in what was part of a near-decade long dispute over cartel activity. The EU said that Intel had abused its market position by obliging clients such as Saturn and Media Markt to sell PCs made with Intel chips.

• EU: the great antitrust busters

  Just browsing, and just one browser…

  In 2013, Microsoft had to dole out another €561 million to the EU. This time, the company was accused of failing to offer an adequate choice of browser to its customers, as it had promised it would a few years earlier. The Commission said that from May 2011 to July 2012, Microsoft had failed to do this.

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  EU: the great antitrust busters

  To Infineon – €100 million – and beyond!

  In 2014, the European Commission slapped a fine of €138 million on four different chip manufacturers, including the Munich-based company Infineon, which had to pay the vast majority of the total amount. Their sin was that between September 2003 and September 2005, they had engaged in price controlling activity with the likes of Philips and Samsung.

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  EU: the great antitrust busters

  Ok Google, stop manipulating search results

  In 2017, Google was ordered to pay a whopping €2.42 billion fine into the EU coffers, with the Commission accusing the search kingpin of manipulating online shopping searches, abusing its market position as a result. The specific transgression was that Google had prioritised its own services’ price comparisons in search results ahead of its competitors.

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  EU: the great antitrust busters

  Qualcomm eats the forbidden Apple

  In 2017, Qualcomm, a chip supplier of US behemoth Apple, had to pay €997 million to the EU. The accusation was that the US company had been paying a fortune to Apple in order to thwart its own competitors. It meant that Qualcomm had abused an already dominant position to exclude other LTE chipset makers from the market.

More scrutiny

The investigation comes as a growing number of US lawmakers have called for stricter regulation, or even breaking up of, large tech companies.

Traditionally in the United States, antitrust regulators have only sought to stop major acquisitions involving two big companies, such as the lawsuit against a merger of the telecommunications companies ATT and Time Warner.

Calls for regulation have also intensified after a series of scandals involving compromised user data, the most notable one being the Cambridge Analytica scandal in which the British consulting firm harvested personal data from millions of people’s Facebook accounts.

Additionally, Google could be facing a hefty fine from US regulators for failing to protect children from harmful content and data collection on their YouTube video service. Amazon has also drawn criticism for its dominating role in e-commerce. 

Both companies have also been targeted by regulators in the European Union. The EU has handed down a total of $9.5 billion (€8.5 billion) in fines to Google over the past two years and is currently investigating whether Amazon misused merchant data to gain a competitive edge. Apple and Facebook have also been scrutinized in Europe over alleged breaches of competition, tax and data rules.

dv/se (AP, Reuters)

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