Regulating or Breaking Up Big Tech: An Antitrust Explainer
US regulators will investigate whether companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Google have too much power. Here’s an introduction to the issues.
Published in
6 min readJun 6, 2019
By Angela Chen
Four tech juggernauts — Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook — are suddenly the target of new scrutiny by the US government. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Department of Justice (DOJ), and Congress have all begun to investigate whether these companies have too much power.
Breaking up will be hard to do. It’s going to be a long process and the outcome is far from certain.
Why are Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google accused of being monopolies?
- Amazon is the world’s largest online store. It also sells hardware like the Echo, runs a computing platform, makes television and movies with Amazon Studios, and owns Whole Foods and Zappos.
Why it’s a problem: Amazon kills companies by copying their ideas. - Apple hovers around a $1 trillion market value.
Why it’s a problem: It is currently the defendant in a class-action lawsuit alleging that it drives up prices in its Apple Store. - As the most popular search…
