Latest in antitrust

Apple has been found to “hide critical information from consumers and illegally stifle consumer choice,” a judge ruled in the company’s legal battle with Epic Games, but the mixed decision will leave App Store fees in place. U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers did not find that Apple fully fit the legal…

Thirty-four groups from the Writers Guild of America West to Public Citizen to Demand Progress have appealed to the Federal Trade Commission to block Amazon's proposed acquisition of MGM, which they say reflects the e-commerce giant's growing dominance. The $8.45 billion deal announced in May – which hands Amazon…

Google is facing another antitrust lawsuit from a coalition of attorneys general as the government officials target the tech giant for its business practices, claiming that it is trying to gain an unfair advantage for its own streaming services via its app store. The lawsuit is the second filed by the coalition, after…

UPDATED, with comments from the FTC and Facebook: A federal judge today tossed out the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, concluding that the government failed to establish that the tech platform had a monopoly on social media networks. The judge, James E. Boasberg, still left open the…

UPDATE, 12:03 PM PT, Thursday, updated with WGAW comment: The House Judiciary Committee narrowly advanced a sixth and final piece of legislation that has been dubbed the “break up” bill, on the notion that it ultimately could lead to tech giants shedding assets or splitting in two. The bill, the Ending Platform…

UPDATED, with Klobuchar comment: Amazon’s planned $8.45 billion acquisition of MGM got a chilly reception from some Capitol Hill lawmakers, but there may not be much that they can do to stop it. The opposition largely centers on Amazon, already with a market cap of more than $1.6 trillion, getting even bigger. But…

UPDATED, with additional comments: Makan Delrahim, who as the Justice Department’s antitrust chief during Donald Trump’s administration challenged AT&T’s combination with Time Warner, has a different view of the planned spinoff of WarnerMedia. “I wish both companies and Mr. Zaslav and Mr. Stankey the best,” Delrahim…

UPDATED with YouTube TV statement. Roku is warning its customers with YouTube TV subscriptions that the service could go dark in the coming days due to what it calls Google’s “predatory” and “monopoly” behavior. In a statement, YouTube TV said it is negotiating “in good faith” with Roku to reach a new deal…

Facebook has finally responded to a December antitrust suit by the Federal Trade Commission (and nearly four dozen states) – asking a federal judge to dismiss it. In a filing in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., the social media giant called the suit baseless. The FTC "utterly ignores the reality of the…

Tim Wu, a professor and lawyer known for coining the term “net neutrality” and for writing authoritative media books like The Master Switch, has been named to a White House post. He will serve on President Joe Biden’s National Economic Council, leaving his post at Columbia University to become special assistant to the…

U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) has formally introduced legislation to strengthen antitrust laws and restore competition to American markets. The Competition and Antitrust Law Enforcement Reform Act “will give federal enforcers the resources they need to do their jobs, strengthen prohibitions on anticompetitive…

Parler, the social network known for embracing many of the people banned by Twitter, YouTube and other tech platforms, has officially gone dark after Amazon Web Services stopped supporting the site. The Amazon unplugging follows the removal of the Parler app from the Apple and Google app stores over the weekend. The…