The US government is gearing up to investigate whether Amazon.com Inc, Apple Inc, Facebook Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google misuse their massive market power, sources told reporters on Monday, setting up what could be an unprecedented, wide-ranging probe of some of the world’s largest companies.
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice, which enforce antitrust laws in the US, have divided oversight over the four companies, two sources said, with Amazon and Facebook under the watch of the FTC, and Apple and Google under the department.
With jurisdiction established, the next step is for the two federal agencies to decide if they want to open formal investigations.
Results are not likely to be quick. A previous FTC probe of Google took more than two years.
Shares of Facebook fell 7.5 percent on Monday while Alphabet shed more than 6 percent. Amazon shares fell 4.6 percent and Apple dipped 1 percent.
The department and FTC generally do not discuss investigations.
US President Donald Trump has called for closer scrutiny of social media companies and Google, accusing them of suppressing conservative voices online, without presenting any evidence.
Leading lawmakers on both sides of the aisle welcomed potential investigations of big tech firms.
US Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, a Republican, said that the business model of companies like Google and Facebook needs to be scrutinized.
“It’s got so much power, and so unregulated,” he said.
Another Republican, US Senator Marsha Blackburn, said the panel would do what she called a “deeper dive” into big tech companies.
US Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat who said on Monday that US enforcers have to do more than wring their hands about the companies’ clout, also weighed in.
“Their predatory power grabs demand strict & stiff investigation & antitrust action,” the senator wrote on Twitter.
Separately, the US House of Representatives Committee of the Judiciary opened its own investigation into competition in digital markets, with both Republicans and Democrats expressing concern about the power exercised by tech giants.
People briefed on the matter say neither the Justice Department nor the FTC have contacted Google or Amazon about any probes, and that company executives are unaware of what issues regulators are reviewing.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts