Did Big Tech Get Too Big? U.S. Crackdown Seeks Answer

(Bloomberg) -- The rise of global technology superstars Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google created new challenges for the competition watchdogs who enforce antitrust laws. The companies dominate markets in e-commerce and smartphones, search advertising and social-media traffic. An anti-monopoly crackdown that began under President Donald Trump is continuing under President Joe Biden, who has surrounded himself with outspoken advocates for vigorous antitrust enforcement against U.S. tech companies.

1. How far is the U.S. going?

In the final months of the Trump administration, the U.S. Justice Department sued Alphabet Inc.’s Google and the Federal Trade Commission sued Facebook Inc. over allegations that they violated antitrust laws. (The FTC is fighting to revive its Facebook lawsuit, which was thrown out by a federal judge on June 28.) Those are the biggest antitrust actions against a tech giant since the U.S. sued Microsoft Corp. more than two decades ago. State attorneys general across the country joined the federal cases against Facebook and Google, while Texas led another group that sued Google over its role in the online advertising market. Another group of states sued Google in early July over what they said are anticompetitive tactics around its app store, Google Play. In the U.S. Congress, lawmakers from both parties are pushing legislation to end alleged anti-competitive practices in the tech industry.

2. What is proposed in Congress?

The House Judiciary Committee in June advanced a package of six antitrust bills, four of which are aimed at reining in technology giants and spurring competition in digital markets. One goal is to prohibit tech companies from owning a business that competes with other products or services on their platforms. That could mean Amazon wouldn’t be allowed to sell its own branded products, Amazon Basics; that Apple couldn’t offer Apple Music; and that Google couldn’t provide specialized search services in travel, local businesses and shopping. The package of bills, if adopted, would lead to the biggest reform of competition laws in at least a century by toughening merger reviews for tech companies, prohibiting them from offering certain products and services, and restricting how they treat other businesses that depend on their platforms.

3. Are the tech giants really monopolies?

They’re powerful, for sure. In the U.S., Google and Facebook together collect more than half of digital advertising spending and Apple Inc. has about half the smartphone market. The House antitrust report estimated that 50% or more of U.S. e-commerce sales goes through Amazon.com Inc.; that 99% of mobile devices in the U.S. and globally run on Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android systems; that Google captures about 89% of all general search queries in the U.S.; and that Facebook’s app reached 74% of U.S. smartphone users as of December 2019. But under modern antitrust enforcement, those percentages alone aren’t enough to alarm regulators in the U.S., which long ago stopped equating big with bad.

4. What’s the point of antitrust enforcement, then?

What’s illegal is for a monopoly to abuse its market power to prevent rivals from threatening its position. (In the U.S. case against Microsoft, a federal judge ruled the software giant did exactly that.) U.S. law sets a higher bar than the European Union for finding abuse of dominance, meaning it’s easier to run afoul of antitrust restrictions in Europe. The EU brought three antitrust actions against Google in as many years carrying penalties that totaled $9.3 billion, while the U.S. chose not to bring charges for some of the same conduct. Still, Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple are all grappling with criticism that they have crossed a line by taking steps to quash competition.

5. How do tech giants abuse their power?

As the middlemen for today’s essential products and services, tech platforms have leverage over both producers and consumers. They have control over vast amounts of data about their customers, raising concerns about threats to privacy. The tech giants are also growing by snapping up potential rivals that might threaten market share. Data compiled by Bloomberg show the big five -- Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft -- made more than 600 acquisitions in the last decade worth more than $200 billion.

6. How often does the U.S. go after monopolies?

Until the Google and Facebook cases last year, the Microsoft lawsuit was the last major monopolization case brought by the U.S. The 20-year dry spell between those events is cited by those who argue enforcement has been too timid. President Barack Obama’s administration vowed to get tough on dominant companies in 2009 but didn’t follow through. The number of monopoly cases brought by the U.S. dropped sharply from an average of 15.7 cases per year from 1970 to 1999 to less than three between 2000 and 2014.

7. Is antitrust thinking outdated?

Some lawyers and economists think it’s time to move past conventional antitrust enforcement to take into account the effects of concentration on innovation, employment and consumer privacy. A fresh line of thinking labeled the New Brandeis School (derided as “hipster antitrust” by critics) would rewrite the playbook entirely and prevent, for example, tech platforms from vertically integrating into other lines of business. Representative David Cicilline of Rhode Island, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee, has noted that key antitrust laws were “written more than 100 years ago” -- the Sherman Act of 1890 and the Clayton Act of 1914. In a 2020 report, that subcommittee called for curbs on further mergers, a rethinking of antitrust beyond consumer welfare and, potentially, the forced breakup of tech companies. Lina Khan, whom Biden appointed to head the FTC, was one of the report’s authors.

8. What do the companies say?

That they face competition across their businesses, both from established tech companies and new startups. Google might be the world’s dominant search engine, but nearly half of all Americans start their product searches on Amazon, according to one survey. Facebook says countless services like TikTok, Snapchat and Twitter are competing for users’ attention. Amazon says its own line of products that compete with third-party sellers means more choice for consumers and is no different than brick-and-mortar retailers that sell their own branded products next to name-brands on their shelves.

The Reference Shelf

• The House antitrust report and Bloomberg’s story on it.
• Meet the biggest players in the battle over antitrust enforcement.
• Big tech is armed and ready to take on the U.S. government.
• This Bloomberg Opinion editorial defended Google against antitrust accusations.
• In Wired, Roger McNamee says everybody but Apple is guilty of anticompetitive practices.

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.