Ownership

The Federal Trade Commission will lead any antitrust investigation into Facebook under an arrangement that gives the Justice Department chief oversight of Alphabet's Google, as the US government gears up for scrutiny of the country’s major tech companies over competition concerns. The Justice Department and FTC now have established that each is responsible for antitrust issues for two of the Big Four tech companies: the Justice Department has authority over Google and Apple, while the FTC has oversight of Facebook and Amazon.

Google and Amazon have thrived as American regulators largely kept their distance. That may be changing. Politicians on the right and left are decrying the tech companies’ enormous power. President Donald Trump (R-NY) and other Republicans have taken swipes at Amazon over taxes and at Google over search results they say are biased.

The Federal Communications Commission received a lashing from one West Virginia elected official, while others praised the agency. Leaders in the House of Delegates support a set of conditions the FCC secured for the merger of Sprint and T-Mobile. But Sen Joe Manchin (D-WV) blasted the FCC for a misleading report on broadband growth. He questions the report’s accuracy and is asking the FCC to seek more feedback from West Virginians on where broadband and wireless service is lacking.

Amid reports that the Department of Justice (DoJ) is exploring conditions that could create a fourth competitor if the proposed combination of T-Mobile and Sprint were to happen, analysts raised a number of questions around how such a deal might be accomplished.

The Department of Justice reportedly talked to representatives from Comcast and Charter recently about filling the void of the fourth major US wireless carrier that would be created if T-Mobile and Sprint are allowed to merge. Apparently, as a condition for approving T-Mobile’s $26.5 billion acquisition bid for Sprint, the DOJ wants the Number 3 & 4 wireless companies to divest wireless spectrum and enable a fourth US major wireless carrier. For their part, Comcast and Charter both have nascent mobile services through mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) agreements with Verizon.

Apparently, top Justice Department officials want T-Mobile US and Sprint to lay the groundwork for a new wireless carrier -- with its own network -- as a condition to clearing their $26.5 billion merger. But the idea of spinning off a full-fledged national competitor would be a high bar for T-Mobile and Sprint to meet. T-Mobile and Sprint, the two smallest national wireless carriers, have to weigh whether the remedies offered to gain approval are too onerous.

Busting up the nation’s tech giants would be much harder than making a campaign pledge. Corporate breakups are a huge, and rare, undertaking for the government, and a social media company like Facebook presents unique challenges that didn't exist with past antitrust successes like the dismembering of AT&T in the 1980s. Here are some of the obstacles standing in the way of turning this rallying cry into reality:

A growing tech-skeptic chorus is drawing attention to the ways in which information technology disrupts democracy. No country is immune. With a better understanding of the principles undergirding both foreign and domestic responses to the threats posed by big tech, each subsequent section in this paper will lay out the specific dimensions of the political and economic problems that have arisen in the digital age, the policy responses and proposals pursued abroad, and the ideas guiding debate in the US.

Following Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s statement indicating he will recommend approval of the proposed merger between T-Mobile and Sprint, Sens Tom Udall (D-NM), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Cory Booker (D-NJ) called on the FCC and the Department of Justice to reject the merger and to open a 30-day public comment period on the proposal.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has recommended the agency approve T-Mobile’s $26 billion acquisition of Sprint, following a set of new commitments from the companies. Now, all eyes now turn to the Department of Justice to approve or reject the deal to create the “New T-Mobile.”