As reported yesterday by the TechCrunch portal and today by the CIO. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has contacted these companies and requested documents on acquisitions made between 2010 and 2019.
The TechCrunch article explains the reasons for the request: “Companies like Apple, Amazon and Google do not always announce every takeover, especially if it is a small fish in a big technology pond. But overall, all the M&A could raise bigger questions about how they use their financial power and influence in the market in an anti-competitive way”. (translated with DeepL)
Techcrunch further quotes an FTC spokesman as saying, “It is conceivable that we may go back” and take enforcement action “to settle transactions,” FTC Chairman Joe Simons said in a press release today.
Conclusion: This eating of the big ones should be observed with suspicion in politics and the cartel office in general. Because in the end, this power raises questions about market manipulation, data protection or surveillance of citizens (unauthorised networking of data) etc. This systemic relevance – as has been observed with banks – is harmful to democracy, is antisocial and impairs diversity and freedom in the market. The stupid one is the customer.
Also interesting: News from the rumour mill: Amazon + Facebook are interested in Oracle, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Google in Workday.
Picture: Pixabay
Note: This is a machine translation. It is neither 100% complete nor 100% correct. We can therefore not guarantee the result.
