Why Big Tech Keeps Shrugging Off Bad News
Facebook, Google, and Amazon are under unprecedented regulatory scrutiny. But investors don’t seem to care — yet.
You might think the world’s largest internet companies would be running scared.
The Federal Trade Commission last week fined Facebook a record $5 billion for privacy violations, while the Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to fine it at least another $100 million. Google faces an FTC fine of its own. States are enacting new privacy laws, and federal legislation is in the works. Earlier this month, the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing on tech and antitrust, on the same day the Senate held a hearing on alleged bias in Google search results.
There’s more to come. The FTC and Department of Justice have divvied up jurisdiction for antitrust reviews of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, and Facebook confirmed last week that it is the subject of an FTC antitrust investigation. One of Facebook’s own co-founders is helping the government to build its case. On top of that, the Department of Justice last week announced that it had begun a broader antitrust review of the dominant tech platforms, including all of the companies named above. Not to mention a litany of privacy scandals, growing dissent among employees…
