GOOGL Alphabet Inc

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.