FTC Chief Says He’s Willing to Break Up Big Tech Companies

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joe Simons aid he’s prepared to break up major technology platforms if necessary by undoing their past mergers as his agency investigates whether companies are harming competition. Chairman Simons, who is leading a broad review of the technology sector, said that breaking up a company is challenging, but could be the right remedy to rein in dominant companies and restore competition. “If you have to, you do it,” Chairman Simons said about breaking up tech companies. “It’s not ideal because it’s very messy. But if you have to you have to.”

Chairman Simons said an agreement between the FTC and the Justice Department to divide scrutiny of the tech industry is based on specific conduct, not on the companies themselves. One company could potentially be investigated by both agencies, though he declined to provide details about their agreement. “It’s possible for sure that we could be investigating the same company at the same time but just for different conduct,” he said. Chairman Simons said, for example, that the FTC could scrutinize Amazon for buying a grocer, because of the agency’s expertise in the supermarket sector, while the Justice Department would probably look at, say, the purchase of a music-streaming site.