The FTC is asking Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft about acquisitions from the past decade that were small enough to not be reported to the gov't
The FTC's order is the opening move in what became a multi-year re-examination of how the biggest tech companies buy capability below the reporting threshold. The related coverage supplies the motive: Google's $80M Invite Media acquisition in 2010 allegedly involved shedding assets first so the deal would not require FTC approval — exactly the behavior a retrospective study is designed to surface.
The study also landed mid-surge: by mid-2020 the five companies had announced 27 acquisitions in six months, their fastest pace since 2015, even as antitrust scrutiny mounted (acquisition pace amid antitrust scrutiny). What the FTC learned from the exercise fed everything after it, including the finding of 819 unreported $1M+ deals from 2010–2019.
First-order effects
Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft must each reconstruct and hand over a decade of sub-threshold deal data — patents, acqui-hires, minority stakes — a compliance lift no single transaction triggers but all five now bear.
Second-order effects
Deal structures come under the microscope: if asset-shedding before closing or acqui-hire framing can route around review, buyers and sellers alike face pressure to price in the risk that 'small' deals get re-litigated years later.
The trend: Antitrust enforcement is shifting from size-triggered merger reporting to retrospective and structural review of how dominant platforms acquire capability through deals too small to notify.
Many giant companies are convinced that their dominance is due to their genius and innovation. But the truth is that so many can get big by swallowing up or shutting down potential threats. They don't need to invent killer apps if they can stay on top through killer acquisitions.
US regulators opened a new front in their investigation of big tech firms, seeking to determine whether the industry's giants acquired smaller rivals in ways that harmed competition, hurt consumers and evaded regulatory scrutiny. https://www.wsj.com/...
“The Federal Trade Commission ordered five big tech companies to provide detailed information about their previous acquisitions...” Microsoft is hoping they'll revisit the Nokia acquisition ;-) https://www.wsj.com/...
Google didn't invent YouTube. Facebook didn't invent Instagram. And the list goes on and on. That's why I voted to order @Google, @Facebook, @Amazon, @Apple, & @Microsoft to hand over a decade of records about their buying binge. https://www.ftc.gov/...
Whether we are netting potentially harmful Big Tech deals for merger review is a good question. Studies show the same question arises in health care markets like dialysis, pharma, and hospitals. @chopraftc and I encourage the @FTC to take a look. https://www.ftc.gov/... https://t…
The FTC confirmed that it could in fact take retroactive actions if it deemed that some of these smaller, previously reported acquisitions did possibly cross antitrust regulations. https://twitter.com/...
As many have said, regulators were supposed to have reviewed these mergers *before* they approved them, and consumer advocates at the time pointed to the problems that the FTC only now seems to be reconsidering https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
WHOA: “The Federal Trade Commission issued Special Orders to five large technology firms, requiring them to provide information about prior acquisitions not reported to the antitrust agencies under the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act.” https://www.ftc.gov/...
fwiw this is a big deal the past decade of bigco strategic tech acquisitions have arguably made all the difference about who has been at the top and stayed there i can't even imagine what looking into google ad tech stack acquisitions will be like