The two Democrats, Commissioners
Christine Wilson and Rohit Chopra, said in a
separate statement that they supported the
demand for information on the companies’
previous acquisitions. But they said the agency
also should study how tech companies’
targeted advertising practices affect the
collection, use and sharing of consumers’
personal data.
Google faced antitrust scrutiny more than a
decade ago over its acquisition of DoubleClick,
a competitor in digital advertising.
Apart from the government and congressional
investigations, state attorneys general
from both political parties are conducting
antitrust probes of Google and Facebook. In
the Google investigation, the attorneys general
have asked the company for internal documents
related to how it sells ads and tracks the
behavior of people who use its search engine
and other products.
A spokesman for Facebook declined
comment on the FTC action. Spokesmen for
Google and Amazon said the companies had
no immediate comment; spokesmen for
Microsoft and Apple didn’t immediately
respond to a request for com ment.
Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple
have said they’ll fully cooperate with the
antitrust investigations by the government
and Congress. In congressional testimony,
their executives have pushed back against
accusations that they operate as monopolies,
laying out ways in which they say they
compete fairly yet vigorously against rivals in
the marketplace.