Big tech companies have long rebuffed attempts by the U.S. federal government to scrutinize or scale back their market power.
Now they face a new coalition of antitrust enforcers: prosecutors from nearly all 50 states.
In a rare show of bipartisan force, attorneys general from 48 states along with Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia are teaming up to open an investigation into whether Google’s huge online search and advertising business is engaging in monopolistic behavior.
The Texas-led antitrust investigation of Google was announced Monday on the steps of the Supreme Court. It follows a separate multistate investigation of Facebook’s market dominance that was revealed Friday.
Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes, a Republican, says it’s an unprecedented effort by states to tackle an antitrust case involving the tech industry.