“A tipping point”: The Tipline for 4 June 2019

The market value of Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple plummeted a total of $130 billion yesterday amidst headlines the two US antitrust enforcers had divvied up jurisdiction over the companies. After the markets closed, the House of Representatives’ antitrust subcommittee announced a bipartisan “top-to-bottom” investigation of market power held by “giant tech platforms”. Senator Richard Blumenthal, one of the 19 state attorneys general behind the 1998 Microsoft monopolisation lawsuit, said “we’ve reached a tipping point.” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi declared that “the era of self-regulation is over.” From the companies, silence.