10 | MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2019 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
Business
There is a major force uniting America’s
fiercely partisan politicians: big tech-
nology companies. Democrats and Re-
publicans at the federal and state levels
are coming together to scrutinize the
power of the Silicon Valley giants and,
potentially, to rein them in.
Letitia James, the Democratic attor-
ney general of New York, announced on
Friday that attorneys general in eight
states — four Democrats and four Re-
publicans — and the District of Colum-
bia had begun an antitrust investigation
of Facebook.
Next up for state regulators is Google.
A similarly bipartisan group led by eight
attorneys general was scheduled to an-
nounce on Monday a separate but com-
parable investigation. The search giant
is expected to be the focus of the inquiry,
according to two people familiar with
the plan, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity before the official announce-
ment.
The state inquiries coincide with bi-
partisan scrutiny of the tech giants in
Washington, by House and Senate com-
mittees, the Justice Department and the
Federal Trade Commission. Federal offi-
cials are examining the practices of Am-
azon and Apple, as well as those of Face-
book and Google.
The companies have caught the atten-
tion of Republicans and Democrats for
somewhat different reasons. President
Trump and political conservatives com-
plain that the social media giants dis-
criminate against them. Liberals say on-
line platforms are barely policed con-
duits for right-wing conspiracy theories
and racism.
As a result, the various investigations
reach beyond the companies’ size,
wealth and market power — the usual
concerns of antitrust regulators. The
companies’ handling of consumer data,
their ad-targeting practices and their
role as gatekeepers of communication
are all under a microscope.
“The dominance of these giant tech-
nology companies warrants a closer
look,” said Representative David Ci-
cilline, the Rhode Island Democrat lead-
ing the House antitrust subcommittee
that is investigating the big tech corpo-
rations. “I’m glad that members of both
parties understand that.”
Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of
Missouri, who began an investigation of
Google in 2017, when he was his state’s
attorney general, also cheered on the
state officials.
“I’m heartened to see a new group of
attorneys general with the courage to
stand up to these powerful companies
and fight for citizens,” he said on Friday.
The federal and state inquiries of to-
day’s big tech companies are just get-
ting started. Major investigations of in-
dustry titans like AT&T, IBM and Micro-
soft in the past were marathon endeav-
ors, spanning years, and sometimes
decades.
But Harry First, an antitrust expert at
the New York University School of Law,
said that rising public concern about the
biggest tech companies was fueling the
new spate of inquiries.
“It remains to be seen if we’re seeing
the beginning of the hard work of seri-
ous enforcement or this is mainly politi-
cal theater,” said Mr. First, a former offi-
cial in the New York attorney general’s
office. “But this matters, because noth-
ing is going to happen without political
support.”
Joining New York and the District of
Columbia in the investigation of Face-
book are the attorneys general of Col-
orado, Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, North
Carolina, Ohio and Tennessee.
Ms. James of New York said all com-
panies — including Facebook, the
world’s largest social media platform —
must follow the law and respect con-
sumers.
“We will use every investigative tool
at our disposal to determine whether
Facebook’s actions may have endan-
gered consumer data, reduced the qual-
ity of consumers’ choices or increased
the price of advertising,” Ms. James
said.
In a statement, Will Castleberry,
Facebook’s vice president of state and
local policy, said the company “will work
constructively with state attorneys gen-eral, and we welcome a conversation
with policymakers about the competi-
tive environment in which we operate.”
A Google spokesman had a similar re-
sponse. “We look forward to working
with the attorneys general to answer
questions about our business and the
dynamic technology sector,” he said.
That state officials would investigate
Facebook and other big tech companies
over antitrust and other issues had been
expected, although the timing was un-
clear. The states’ move follows similar
steps by the Federal Trade Commission
and Justice Department to examine
how the companies have accumulated
market power and whether they have
acted to reduce competition. On Friday,
Google disclosed to financial regulators
that the Justice Department had re-
quested documents related to past an-
titrust investigations into the company.
Congress is exploring the same ques-
tions. In July, executives from Face-
book, Google, Amazon and Apple — the
four companies that are the focus of the
Justice Department’s review — ap-
peared at an antitrust hearing in Wash-
ington. Another hearing is planned for
this week.
State regulators, typically acting in
tandem with federal officials, can play
an important role in major antitrust in-
vestigations. That was the case in the
landmark antitrust case against Micro-
soft, when 20 states joined the Justice
Department in suing the software giant
in 1998.
Unlike that case, the current antitrust
issues extend well beyond a single com-
pany. The Justice Department, for ex-
ample, is focused on companies that op-
erate in, and have come to dominate,
somewhat different markets, including
internet search, online advertising, e-
commerce and social networks.
For Facebook, the states’ antitrust in-
vestigation puts the social media giant
in regulators’ cross hairs yet again.In July, the Federal Trade Commis-
sion voted to fine the company about $
billion for mishandling users’ personal
information, the agency’s largest fine
ever against a tech company. Also in
July, Facebook officials faced two days
of grilling in Congress over a new cryp-
tocurrency initiative called Libra.
The state antitrust investigation into
Facebook could move in many different
directions.
It might, for instance, align with the
trade commission’s inquiry, which is fo-
cused on whether the company used
what Chris Hughes, a Facebook founder,
and the prominent antitrust academics
Scott Hemphill and Tim Wu have called
a “program of serial defensive acquisi-
tions” to maintain its dominance in the
social-networking industry.
In 2012, Facebook bought Instagram,
the photo-sharing network, for $1 bil-
lion. Two years later, it spent $19 billion
for WhatsApp, a global-messaging ap-
plication used by more than a billion
people.
Critics like Mr. Hughes, Mr. Hemphill
and Mr. Wu believe that long before ei-
ther acquisition, Mark Zuckerberg, a
founder of Facebook and its chief execu-
tive, kept a close eye on start-ups that
could pose a threat to his company.
Facebook has acquired more than 70
companies over roughly 15 years.
As for Google, it escaped unscathed
from a 21-month trade commission in-
vestigation that ended in 2013. The
agency decided that the company did
not violate antitrust laws in how it
presented search results, despite often
steering users to its own services, like
shopping.
Google has received tougher treat-
ment in Europe.
In several antitrust investigations
into its market behavior, Google has
agreed to pay the European Union more
than $8 billion in fines.Scrutiny of Big Tech:It’s nothing partisanThe attorney general of New York, Letitia James, is one of eight state attorneys general
— four Democrats and four Republicans — investigating Facebook’s practices.MARK LENNIHAN/ASSOCIATED PRESSEd Shanahan and Davey Alba contribut-
ed reporting.BY STEVE LOHRFederal and state officials
are conducting antitrust
investigations into Amazon,
Apple, Facebook and Google.“Happy hour” at the S-market store in
the working class neighborhood of
Vallila happens far from the liquor aisles
and isn’t exactly convivial. Nobody is
here for drinks or a good time. They’re
looking for a steep discount on a slab of
pork.
Or a chicken, or a salmon fillet, or any
of a few hundred items that are hours
from their midnight expiration date.
Food that is nearly unsellable goes on
sale at every one of S-market’s 900
stores in Finland, with prices that are al-
ready reduced by 30 percent slashed to
60 percent off at exactly 9 p.m. It’s part
of a two-year campaign to reduce food
waste that company executives in this
bibulous country decided to call “happy
hour,” in the hopes of drawing in regu-
lars, like any decent bar.
“I’ve gotten quite hooked on this,”
said Kasimir Karkkainen, 27, who works
in a hardware store, as he browsed the
meat section in the Vallila S-market. It
was 9:15 and he had grabbed a container
of pork mini-ribs and two pounds of
shrink-wrapped pork tenderloin.
Total cost after the price drop: the
equivalent of $4.63.
About one-third of the food produced
and packaged for human consumption
is lost or wasted, according to the Food
and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations. That equals 1.3 billion
tons a year, worth nearly $680 billion.
The figures represent more than just a
disastrous misallocation of need and
want, given that 10 percent of people in
the world are chronically undernour-
ished. All that excess food, scientists
say, contributes to climate change.
From 8 percent to 10 percent of green-
house gas emissions are related to food
lost during harvest and production or
wasted by consumers, a recent report
by the Intergovernmental Panel on Cli-
mate Change found. Rotting food in
landfills emits methane, a gas that is
roughly 25 times as harmful as carbon
dioxide. And to harvest and transport all
that wasted food requires billions of
acres of arable land, trillions of gallons
of water and vast amounts of fossil fuels.
For consumers, cutting food waste is
one of the few personal habits that can
help the planet. But for some reason, a
lot of people who fret about their carbon
footprint aren’t sweating the vegetables
and rump steak they toss into the
garbage.
“There’s been a lot of focus on energy,”
said Paul Behrens, a professor in energy
and environmental change at the Uni-
versity of Leiden in the Netherlands.
“But climate change is as much a land
issue and a food issue as anything else.”
Reducing waste is a challenge be-
cause selling as much food as possible is
a tried, tested and ingrained part of all-
you-can-eat cultures. Persuading mer-
chants to promote and profit from “food
rescue,” as it is known, is not so obvious.
“Consumers are paying for the food,
and who wants to reduce that?” said
Toine Timmermans, director of the
United Against Food Waste Foundation,
a nonprofit in the Netherlands com-
posed of companies and research insti-
tutes. “Who profits from reducing food
waste?”
A growing number of supermarkets,
restaurants and start-ups — many
based in Europe — are trying to answer
that question. The United States is an-
other matter.“Food waste might be a uniquely
American challenge because many peo-
ple in this country equate quantity with
a bargain,” said Meredith Niles an as-
sistant professor in food systems and
policy at the University of Vermont.
“Look at the number of restaurants that
advertise their supersized portions.”
Nine of the 10 United States super-
market chains that were assessed by the
nonprofit Center for Biological Diversi-
ty last year were given a C grade orlower on food-waste issues. Only Wal-
mart did better, largely for its efforts to
standardize date labels and to educate
workers and customers.
Some of the most promising food
waste efforts are apps that connect food
sellers to food buyers. Think Tinder, ex-
cept one party in this hookup is a person
and the other is an aging loaf of bread.
Among the most popular is Too Good
to Go, a company based in Copenhagen,
with 13 million users and contracts with
25,000 restaurants and bakeries in 11
countries. Consumers pay about one-
third of the sticker price for items; most
of the revenue goes to the retailer, with a
small percentage paid to the app.
In Denmark, food rescue has attained
the scale and momentum of a cultural
movement, one with its own intellectual
godmother: Selina Juul, a graphic de-
signer who immigrated from Russia at
the age of 13.
“I came from a country where there
was a fear that we wouldn’t have food on
the table tomorrow, where there were
food shortages,” she said in a phone in-
terview. “When we emigrated, I had
never seen so much food. I was shocked.
Then I was shocked again when I saw
how much food people wasted.”In 2008, at the age of 28, she started a
Facebook group called Stop Wasting
Food. Within weeks, she was being in-
terviewed on the radio. Soon after that,
she came to the attention of Anders
Jensen, the buying director at REMA
1000, the largest supermarket chain in
Denmark.
“I was on a business trip to Scotland
and I read about Selina in a newspaper,”
Mr. Jensen recalled. “Around that time,
we learned that every Dane was throw-
ing out 63 kilos of food per year” — about
139 pounds — “and I was sitting in this
airport thinking, she’s right.”
After the two met in a Copenhagen
cafe, REMA 1000 eliminated in-store
bulk discounts. As of 2008, there would
be no more offering three hams for the
price of two, or any variations on that
theme.
“It exploded in the media because it
was the first time a retailer said, ‘It’s
O.K. if we sell less,’ ” Mr. Jensen said.
REMA 1000 and Ms. Juul recognize
that there is a limit to how much one
company can do to reduce waste. Con-
sciousness-raising was necessary. So
Ms. Juul has enlisted famous Danes to
join her cause.
She’s co-writing a book on cooking
with leftovers with Princess Marie, who
worked in advertising and marketing
before marrying into the Danish royal
family. Celebrity chefs like Rene
Redzepi have spread the word. Mette
Frederiksen, the prime minister, made it
a campaign issue this year.
In Finland, reducing food waste has
yet to become a political issue, but it is a
selling point for at least one restaurant.
Every dish on the menu of Loop, which
is housed in a former mental hospital in
Helsinki, is made from past-due ingredi-
ents donated by grocery stores and bak-
eries. Donations vary, so Loop’s chefs
have no idea what they’ll be making un-
til they walk into the restaurant’s
kitchen.
“It’s like an episode of ‘Master Chef’
every day,” said Johanna Kohvakka,
founder of the nonprofit From Waste to
Taste, which operates Loop. “But we try
to make every dish look great so that
people can share images online and say,
‘This was about to be wasted.’”
Ms. Kohvakka says Loop turns a prof-
it and could serve as a model for similar
ventures. Executives at S-market in
Finland make no such claims about
their happy hour. Mika Lyytikainen, an
S-market vice president, explained that
the program simply reduces its losses.
“When we sell at 60 percent off, we
don’t earn any money, but we earn more
than if the food was given to charity,” he
said. “On the other hand, it’s now possi-
ble for every Finn to buy very cheap
food in our stores.”
It’s not unusual to find groups of S-
market shoppers milling around with
soon-to-be-discounted items from the
shelves and waiting for the clock to
strike 9. “I’ve done that,” Mr.
Karkkainen said, as he headed for the
exits with his pork.
Other Finns, it seems, haven’t fully
embraced S-market’s anti-waste ethos.
Harri Hartikainen, 71, was shopping one
evening in Vallila and considered a box
of Kansas City-style grilled chicken
wings marked down by 60 percent.
“I’ve never tried these before,” he
said, dropping them into his shopping
basket. “But it’s so cheap, if I don’t like it,
I can just throw it out.”Shopping at an S-market grocery in Helsinki, Finland. “Happy hour” at S-market stores across the country starts at 9 p.m., with discounts on items that expire at midnight.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JUHO KUVA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESDon’t pitch that pork
HELSINKI, FINLAND
Deals on food that’s about
to expire are among tactics
in Europe to reduce waste
BY DAVID SEGAL
A price discount table, left, helps S-market shoppers calculate the bargains announced
by bright-orange stickers, right. “Food rescue” is a growing concern in Europe.About one-third of the food produced and packaged for human consumption is wasted,
according to the United Nations: 1.3 billion tons a year, worth nearly $680 billion.“There’s been a lot of focus
on energy. But climate change
is as much a land issue and a
food issue as anything else.”