The US Department of Justice's anti-trust chief laid out the case against big tech companies in a speech he delivered at Tel Aviv on Tuesday. Makan Delrahim laid out some of the possible arguments the US government will make against tech giants. Delrahim argued that existing antitrust laws are strong enough to regulate tech companies and that "the Antitrust Division does not take a myopic view of competition."..."Many recent calls for antitrust reform, or more radical change, are premised on the incorrect notion that antitrust policy is only concerned with keeping prices low." +Earlier this month, the Federal Trade Commission agreed to handle any potential investigations into Amazon and Facebook, while the Department of Justice said it would handle Apple and Google parent Alphabet. Spotify has reportedly criticized Apple's practices, describing the company as anti-competitive in a complaint to the EU's antitrust regulators. Here are arguments that the US government could use to probe antitrust cases against Big Tech: 1. The US sued Microsoft for anti-trust in 1998 Delrahim explained that the US government's had sued Microsoft its monopoly on personal computers. Microsoft had placed restrictions on the ability of OEMs and consumers to install the Internet Explorer browser and use other browsers such as Netscape. The successful anti-trust case against Microsoft in 1998 has enabled current tech giants like Google, Apple, and Facebook to enter the market with their own desktop and mobile products. 2. Coordinated behaviour Delrahim said the antitrust division may look into "coordinated conduct that creates…
