Scrutiny of Tech Piles Up With New Review of Small Deals
The FTC wonders whether it missed troubling signs in a wave of acquisitions by Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft.
Joseph Simons, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, speaks at CES 2020 in Las Vegas, on Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2020.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Over the last decade, major technology companies made a handful of enormous acquisitions — Facebook Inc.’s 2014 purchase of WhatsApp; Microsoft Corp.’s 2016 deal for LinkedIn; Amazon.com Inc.’s 2017 acquisition of Whole Foods — and a huge number of tiny deals. In the latest sign that public officials are re-examining the permissive approach they’ve taken to the industry, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission demanded new information this week about deals too small to draw its attention when they happened.