According to extra scoops of WSJ journalism... Two of the nation's main business regulators, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Justice Department (DOJ), are divvying up which tech companies to regulate. And they've been training: FTC and DOJ can enforce antitrust laws — the power to investigate, sue, fine, and break up monopolies.
- DOJ: It's focused on Apple and Google.
- FTC: It's taking on Facebook and Amazon.
Fun party game... Try naming a bipartisan political issue. Answer: Regulate Silicon Valley. Conservatives think tech is too liberal and censors conservative voices, liberals think it kills jobs/equality/competition. But Capitol Hill hasn't teamed up to do anything about it — Then we learned regulators game planned X's and O's, and Google fell 6% while Facebook face-planted 8% Monday.
- $130B: That's the total market value lost by tech companies in just Monday's drop.
- 10%: That's how much lower the tech-heavy Nasdaq stock index is from its high in April (that means it's technically in "correction" status).
Tech is free, but it still has a price... Regulators used to tackle monopolies only when customers were hit by high prices. Now Google and Facebook definitely could fit the definition of monopolies — they own nearly 60% of all US online ads — but they're free for us to use. So if regulators finally regulate tech, they won't be looking at prices — they’ll look purely at power (too much of it). That's a new frontier.