TEXAS, backed by nine other states, filed a lawsuit against Alphabet Inc’s Google on Wednesday, accusing the internet search company of breaking antitrust law in how it runs its online advertising business.
The lawsuit comes more than a year after it was revealed that the U.S. Justice Department, Federal Trade Commission and big groups of state attorneys general had major antitrust probes under way of Big Tech platforms: Google, Amazon.com Inc, Apple Inc and Facebook Inc.
The U.S. Justice Department sued Google in October, accusing the $1 trillion company of illegally using its market muscle to hobble rivals. More state attorneys general expected to sue Google. A bipartisan group of more than 30 state attorneys general is expected to file an antitrust complaint against Google on Thursday. These states, which include Colorado, have said they hope to consolidate their case with the government’s.
It’s about time that the Federal agencies took a deeper look into big techs — whether this is due to President Trump’s dislike of big tech or whether the firms have actually broken any laws may be debatable, but the fact remains that many small firms have complained about the huge muscles flexed by these major companies.
For example some app developers have accused Apple of introducing new products very similar to existing apps created by other developers and sold in the Apple Store, and then trying to banish the older apps from the store because they compete with Apple’s new product. Apple says it seeks to have only the highest-quality apps in the app store.
Similarly in its investigation of Amazon, the FTC is likely looking at the inherent conflict of interest of Amazon competing with small sellers on its marketplace platform, including allegations that it used information from sellers on its platform to decide what products it would introduce.
That’s also why the Federal Trade Commission and a major coalition of states are asking that Facebook be forced to sell WhatsApp and Instagram, saying the social media company used a “buy or bury” strategy to snap up rivals and keep smaller competitors at bay. The Justice Department is also investigating Apple– this probe, revealed in June 2019, appears to focus on Apple’s app store.
Bangladesh can take some notes from the Federal actions and try to investigate our monopolies or oligopolies such as the cartel which consistently attempts to artificially fix the prices of essentials and other items during times of perceived but not actual shortages. We can do more to rein in oligopolies like Grameenphone and other telecommunications services which are constantly on the lookout to gouge consumers’ wallets. While BTRC has done a great job in reducing such price gouging more needs to be done to rein in these financial predators.
