The Big Five of the American hi-tech industry end up in the antitrust target. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) wants to see us clearly about the acquisitions finalized in recent years by Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Alphabet, the company that controls Google. For this reason, he asked all five companies for information on the operations carried out from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2019. The request, however, should not concern the maxi operations, the most important ones that over the years have affected Silicon Valley and the West Coast in general, such as Facebook's purchase of Instagram and WhatsApp.
All acquisitions that have already been examined by the federal authorities and that have also received an ok from the Department of Justice. Rather, we will investigate the smaller acquisitions, those that usually don't need a particular notification to antitrust authorities and that are worth less than $ 90 million. The decision of the FTC board, taken unanimously, is therefore aimed at understanding better how Big Tech uses acquisitions to accumulate more and more power, an aspect that is increasingly contested at all levels.
Furthermore, we want to verify in more detail how the data of the acquired companies, often sensitive and personal data, are used. This also in light of the various scandals that have occurred in recent times, from the Cambridge Analyitica case downwards. Meanwhile, on the merger front, a district judge has given the go-ahead to the wedding between T-Mobile and Sprint, the third and fourth telecommunications companies in the United States. This is a $ 26 billion operation with which the new hub will launch the challenge on the front of wireless technology and new generation 5G networks to the giants At & t and Verizon. The merger is expected to give enormous impetus to competition in the industry, although the authorization of the California authority is still missing.
