— This is the script of CNBC's news report for China's CCTV on July 25, 2019, Thursday.
Tech giants are experiencing a hard time recently, signs of regulatory tightening are evident in both Europe and the US.
The justice department's antitrust investigation is focused on whether market-leading online platforms are gaining market dominance to stifle competition, impede innovation or harm consumers.
The Justice Department did not name specific companies in its statement, but identified several key words: search, social media, and some online retailers. It can be speculated that Google, Facebook, Amazon and even Apple could be directly affected. As for Amazon's involvement, Treasury secretary Mnuchin, in an interview with CNBC, said the justice department's investigation was correct because Amazon destroyed retail and limited competition.
Steven Mnuchin
United States Secretary of the Treasury
"I think if you look at Amazon, although there are certain benefits to it, they've destroyed the retail industry across the United States so there's no question they've limited competition," "I think it's very good that the attorney general is going to look into this. I think it's an important issue and I look forward to him reporting back to the president and hearing his recommendations
Meanwhile, the federal trade commission is taking action. It announced Wednesday that Facebook will pay $5 billion in fines to settle Cambridge analytica data breach.
Although that amount is already the largest privacy fine the FTC has ever imposed, at least two commissioners were unhappy. At the same time, Facebook needs to be more and more tightly regulated in its collection and use of user data. Concerns about the power of big tech companies are growing in the United States, with President trump railing against them and lawmakers from both parties recently calling for greater oversight of the tech giants.
Predictably, America's tech giants are bracing for a new round of regulatory tightening. Their expansion may also be limited during this period. Affected by this, the main technology share price goes under some pressure. However, until the final results of the survey, the market is still dominated by wait-and-see sentiment, the stock price performance is relatively stable.