A boom in anti-trust cases has brought the likes of Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc., and Meta Platforms under judicial scrutiny. Beyond the increase in volume for high paying work for lawyers, these cases touch upon deep-rooted questions about the meaning of a monopoly in our increasingly digitized economy.
On March 21, the US Department of Justice included Apple Inc. in the list of big tech companies under investigation, alongside Alphabet Inc. The Federal Trade Commission is already investigating Amazon.com Inc. and Meta Platforms.
Only a few days later on March 25, the European Union announced that they too would begin investigating three of these four tech giants: Apple, Alphabet, and Meta. This extension of anti-trust investigations beyond US borders indicates the global impact these corporations have on the world stage.
The definition and subsequent regulation of a monopoly have become increasingly challenging in an economy that’s shifting away from physical to virtual. The highly complex tech industry, with its borderless operation and digital products, presents a new frontier for anti-trust law. The verdicts of these high-profile cases could set precedents and redefine monopoly in the Information Age.