Big Tech's small deals pose a quandary for regulators

Tech companies like Google and Facebook grew giant in part by rolling up startups that are now fully integrated into their businesses. Despite heated antitrust rhetoric, it would be a tall order for regulators to reverse hundreds of deals or force divestitures of the essential business lines those transactions helped build. As regulators review a decade of tech industry acquisitions for signs of monopolistic behavior, proposing remedies is going to be a tough challenge. Washington still has some tools to help counter competitive harms stemming from past mergers. Regulators could use the courts or a settlement to get companies to put up assets or money to seed a new competitor, for instance.