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

The rise of global technology superstars like Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google created new challenges for the competition watchdogs who enforce antitrust laws around the world. The companies dominate markets in e-commerce and smartphones, search advertising and social-media traffic. Antitrust enforcers globally have ramped up their oversight. The stepped-up scrutiny in the U.S. under President Donald Trump will likely continue whether or not he wins re-election in November, as Democrats, too, are pushing for stronger enforcement.

The Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission and a nationwide group of state attorneys general have all opened antitrust investigations of one or more of the four tech giants. Most advanced are parallel inquiries into Alphabet Inc.’s Google by the Justice Department and states led by Texas. Those have the potential to become the biggest U.S. antitrust case since the Justice Department and states sued Microsoft Corp. in 1998 for abusing its monopoly in computer-operating systems. In the U.S. Congress, the House’s antitrust panel is nearing the end of a yearlong investigation of the four tech companies, an inquiry that could lead to proposed legislation to toughen oversight of their businesses.