Ownership

The new reality for big tech companies: Scrutiny from regulators and lawmakers has become a constant. For the past few years, American regulators appeared to be lagging as authorities around the world have stepped up their actions to crimp the power of Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple. The contrast was starkest with European officials, who have passed laws and imposed a series of large penalties against big tech companies. But in recent months, American lawmakers and regulators have also ramped up their activity.

Apparently, the  Federal Trade Commission opened an investigation into Facebook for possible antitrust violations, an early-stage probe that is examining competition in its oldest business -- social media. The agency has already contacted third parties that could aid in the investigation as it tries to understand competitive dynamics. Though the company has made many acquisitions and expanded into new businesses, including messaging, virtual reality and e-commerce, the FTC’s probe is focused on its most long-standing offering -- social networking.

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Facebook for making misleading disclosures regarding the risk of misuse of Facebook user data.  For more than two years, Facebook’s public disclosures presented the risk of misuse of user data as merely hypothetical when Facebook knew that a third-party developer had actually misused Facebook user data.  Public companies must identify and consider the material risks to their business and have procedures designed to make disclosures that are accurate in all material respects, including not continuing to describe a risk as hypothetical when it ha

We’re two and a half years into Donald Trump’s presidency, and one thing is clear: his administration keeps getting absolutely railroaded in tech policy fights. Almost every time he has picked a fight, his efforts have resulted in weak enforcement changes, whipsaw policy confusion among free-market conservatives, and / or outright losses.

Dish Network has agreed to acquire prepaid mobile operations and spectrum from Sprint and T-Mobile. What would a Dish wireless strategy be? Dish’s traditional business of delivering video by satellite has come under pressure as cord-cutting increases, and the company seems to see wireless as the most logical new business area. In 2018, Dish said its initial move into the wireless business is to build a network to support Internet of Things (IoT) applications and that the company eventually would deploy 5G.

Apparently, the Department of Justice is poised to approve T-Mobile’s merger with Sprint under a divestiture plan that would equip satellite-TV operator Dish Network with the building blocks for a new wireless network. The companies have spent weeks negotiating with antitrust enforcers and each other over the sale of assets to Dish to satisfy concerns that the more than $26 billion merger of the No. 3 and No. 4 wireless carriers by subscribers would hurt competition.

The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division is reviewing whether and how market-leading online platforms have achieved market power and are engaging in practices that have reduced competition, stifled innovation, or otherwise harmed consumers. The Department’s review will consider the widespread concerns that consumers, businesses, and entrepreneurs have expressed about search, social media, and some retail services online.

Some key findings about the state of the news media in 2018:

Apple’s mobile apps routinely appear first in search results ahead of competitors in its App Store, a powerful advantage that skirts some of the company’s rules on such rankings. The company’s apps ranked first in more than 60% of basic searches, such as for “maps,” the analysis showed. Apple apps that generate revenue through subscriptions or sales, like Music or Books, showed up first in 95% of searches related to those apps. This dominance gives the company an upper hand in a marketplace that generates $50 billion in annual spending.

Facebook and Amazon both set quarterly records for federal lobbying over the last three months, leading a pack of large tech companies that are increasingly under siege in Washington. Each company spent a little more than $4 million on lobbying in the second quarter, the first time either firm has spent that much on their influence operations in the capital. Google, which has also seen its fortunes change in Washington, spent just $2.9 million in the second quarter — the least it’s spent on lobbying since 2011.