FTC to Clarify Its Power to Regulate Big Tech
September 12 2019 - 5:32PM
Dow Jones News
By Dylan Tokar
The Federal Trade Commission plans to lay out exactly how U.S.
antitrust laws apply to big technology companies -- an effort
intended to guide its own enforcement and highlight potential
regulatory gaps.
The guidance would help clarify whether limitations exist in
current laws that prevent the regulator from policing
anti-competitive behavior by the technology sector, a senior FTC
official said this week.
The document could serve as a roadmap for lawmakers who have
voiced concerns about the dominance of companies such as Alphabet
Inc.'s Google unit, Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc. and Apple
Inc.
"The executive and legislative branch may find this document
helpful as each considers whether new laws or new regulations" are
needed to maintain competitive technology markets, said Bilal
Sayyed, director of the FTC's office of policy planning, in
prepared remarks for a speech delivered Tuesday at an antitrust
enforcement symposium at Georgetown University Law Center.
Mr. Sayyed said the agency, which is tasked with protecting
American consumers from unfair or deceptive business practices,
wasn't ready to discuss the substance of the document.
An FTC spokeswoman was unable to say when the guidance would be
released. Mr. Sayyed said the document was his office's "highest
priority."
The dominance of big tech companies has increasingly become a
bipartisan issue in Washington, D.C., and around the country. A
group of 48 states' attorneys general, as well as Puerto Rico and
the District of Columbia, on Monday announced a probe of Google's
practices in online advertising markets.
The scrutiny has been fueled in part by the view that the
current approach to enforcing U.S. antitrust laws has led to the
accumulation of overly large market shares and political clout by
tech companies in a way that harms consumers.
Responding to the announcement of an investigation by the
states' attorneys general, a Google spokesman on Monday referred to
a blog post by executive Kent Walker, a senior vice president for
global affairs. "Google's services help people, create more choice,
and support thousands of jobs and small businesses across the
United States," Mr. Walker wrote.
The FTC in February created a task force to examine antitrust
violations in the tech industry. The Justice Department in July
said it was also reviewing whether tech companies were unlawfully
stifling competition.
The pressure to tackle the competition issues posed by big tech
companies has led to skirmishes between the two agencies, which
share the responsibility of enforcing federal antitrust laws.
Mr. Sayyed, in his speech this week, voiced some support for
existing antitrust laws. Calls to regulate the operational
decisions of digital platforms do not take into account the
"strength" and "vitality" of federal antitrust law's ability to
integrate new economic concepts, he said.
Write to Dylan Tokar at dylan.tokar@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 12, 2019 17:17 ET (21:17 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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