The FTC has been investigating the company on a number of fronts, and the upcoming case will be one of the highest-profile moves in the Biden administration’s difficult effort to rein in the tech giants.

The trial is expected to take place in August. According to sources, a number of Amazon’s business practices will be challenged during the trial. If won, it could lead to a $1.3 trillion judicial restructuring of the empire and determine the legacy of Federal Trade Commission Chairman Lina Khan.

Khan is notoriously skeptical of big tech, publishing an academic paper back in 2017 defining Amazon as a modern monopolist that needs to be reined in.

Some say the focus will turn to challenging Amazon Prime, Amazon rules that the FTC says block lower prices on competing websites, and policies that the FTC says force merchants to use Amazon’s logistics and advertising services.

Over the past three years, the FTC has collected millions of documents from Amazon and third parties to build its case, and has even questioned CEO Andy Jassy and former CEO Jeff Bezos, according to some people.

Among the potential lawsuits are allegations similar to existing lawsuits already filed by the attorneys general of Washington and California, according to sources. Those lawsuits center on Amazon’s rules that require third-party retailers to offer their lowest prices on Amazon’s platform, thereby cutting off the ability to lower prices elsewhere.

The FTC has already filed suit to block the $68.7 billion acquisition, opting to file a lawsuit before a domestic administrative judge. Through this trial-like process, the judge will make an initial decision that can be appealed to the full commission for a vote. Microsoft can then appeal to federal court if the decision is not in its favor. The case is due to be heard by an administrative judge in August.

“We welcome the opportunity to present our case in federal court. We believe expediting the legal process in the U.S. will ultimately lead to more choice and competition in the marketplace.”

said Microsoft President Brad Smith.

An appeal against the UK Competition and Markets Authority’s decision to block the merger is also planned for this summer, shortly after the acquisition deadline.

The FTC reached a settlement with the company that includes enhanced protections for child gamers. Additionally, the tech giant was found to have failed to inform parents of its data collection policies.

Will misuse of personal data and breach of privacy become a new trend? Just a few days ago, the same US commission fined Amazon $25 million for violating children’s privacy with its voice assistant Alexa.

The FTC said Microsoft violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by failing to obtain proper parental consent and retaining personal data of children under 13 for longer than unreasonable.
for accounts created before 2021.

The law requires online services and websites targeting children to obtain parental consent and inform them of the personal data being collected about their child.

To access certain services Xbox users must create an account, with information such as full name, email address and date of birth collected.

Only after obtaining personal information, such as the child’s phone number, does Microsoft ask the parent for permission.

“Regrettably, we did not meet customer expectations and are committed to complying with the order to continue improving upon our safety measures,”

Microsoft’s Dave McCarthy, CVP of Xbox Player Services, wrote in an Xbox blog post.

As part of the settlement, Microsoft must also institute new safety protections for children. That includes maintaining a system to delete all personal data after two weeks if no parental consent is obtained.

The FTC is cracking down on GoodRx, Microsoft is dropping “verified” phishing scams, researchers are uncovering vulnerabilities in electric vehicle chargers, and more, Wired wrote on the topic.

Spam and malware tracking NGO Spamhaus reports that it has seen a “huge spike” in the spread of malware via Google ads over the past two months. This includes “malware” that looks like authentic downloads of tools such as Slack, Mozilla’s Thunderbird email client and the Tor browser.

Security firm SentinelOne further identified a handful of malicious bootloaders distributed through Google ads, which the researchers collectively dubbed MalVirt. They say the MalVirt loaders are used to spread malware such as XLoader, which an attacker can use to steal data from an infected machine.

This week, Microsoft announced that it has disabled the accounts of threat actors who were able to verify themselves under the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program. Posing as legitimate companies, threat actors used their verified account status to create malicious OAuth applications.

The 37 million customers put at risk by the latest T-Mobile hack may not be the only people affected by the breach. This week, Google informed customers of its Google Fi mobile service that hackers had obtained “limited” account information, including phone numbers, SIM card serial numbers and information about their accounts.

The hackers did not gain access to payment information, passwords or the content of messages, such as text messages. However, the information may have been used for SIM replacement attacks.

In a revised complaint filed last August, the FTC argues that the company pursued a “buy or bury” strategy against rivals to suppress competition.

This is the FTC’s second antitrust legal challenge against the company. In June last year, a federal judge dismissed antitrust lawsuits brought against Facebook by the agency and a broad coalition of state attorneys general that were among multiplying efforts by federal and state regulators to rein in Big Tech’s market power.

This time the facts in the new suit are ‘far more robust’. US District Judge James Boasberg said that, though the “core theory” of the lawsuit — that Facebook is a monopoly engaging in anticompetitive behavior — remains unchanged, the facts alleged this time around are “far more robust and detailed than before”.

Meta said in an emailed statement it is “confident the evidence will reveal the fundamental weakness of the claims”. The company said.

“Our investments in Instagram and WhatsApp transformed them into what they are today. They have been good for competition, and good for the people and businesses that choose to use our products”.

The FTC is seeking remedies that could include a forced spinoff of Facebook’s popular Instagram and WhatsApp messaging services, or a restructuring of the company.

President Joe Biden will on Friday sign an executive order cracking down on the power of Big Tech firms, as first reported by The New York Times.

The fact-sheet for the wide-ranging executive order focusing on “promoting competition in the American economy” was posted by the White House Friday morning. Technology makes up just one part of the order, which also targets sectors like the job market, healthcare, and transportation — but it takes specific aim at Big Tech platforms.

The order will, first, tell federal agencies to scrutinize mergers involving Big Tech firms more closely, especially when these firms try to buy smaller companies that could one day become their competitors.

Second, the order says Big Tech platforms are “gathering too much personal information,” and will instruct the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to draw up rules and limitations on how Big Tech companies can hoover up consumer data.

The order also says Big Tech companies can use their troves of data to give themselves an advantage over smaller businesses, and asks the FTC to draw up rules “barring unfair methods of competition on internet marketplaces.”

On top of the orders specifically targeting Big Tech companies, Biden will also reportedly ask the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to create new rules for broadband internet providers, and encourage the FCC to readopt net neutrality rules.

Big Tech companies including Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google are already under intense antitrust scrutiny in Washington.

In June, Congress introduced a series of bills directed at these four companies, and Biden appointed renowned Big Tech critic Lina Khan as head of the FTC, a move that prompted Amazon to ask that Khan be removed from any enforcement decisions involving the company.

The complaint [PDF], filed in US District Court in Orlando, Florida, alleges Oracle has: misappropriated trade secrets by hiring key personnel; enriched itself unjustly by building its business on the relationships, know-how, and proprietary knowledge of CentralSquare employees; interfered with CentralSquare’s business by encouraging recruited employees to violate confidentiality obligations; and engaged in unfair business practices. In the complaint it was said:

“In or about June of 2020, in an effort to strengthen and grow its small public safety and justice business, Oracle began targeting, recruiting and hiring key CentralSquare employees who are devoted to the Public Safety and Justice Unit, including executives, engineers, and designers, all of whom have agreements with CentralSquare containing various restrictive covenant obligations.”

CentralSquare contends that Oracle is trying “to build and expand its public safety and justice organization primarily at CentralSquare’s expense by targeting and hiring away CentralSquare employees in various key executive and technical roles.”

CentralSquare says that it has over 5,000 public agency customers, thanks largely to its Public Safety Suite Pro software. Oracle, the company claims, has far fewer customers in that particular market and has been deliberately trying to recruit CentralSquare employees with knowledge of that product.

Oracle managed to recruit Steve Seoane, CentralSquare’s former President of its Public Safety and Justice Unit, to join the company as senior veep in June 2020.

After that, at least five other CentralSquare employees who worked under Seoane left to join Oracle. The complaint alleges

“Oracle appears to be targeting CentralSquare engineers from its office in South Dakota. Oracle knows that CentralSquare employs almost all qualified software engineers in South Dakota and other Public Safety and Justice development and design centres who can immediately service the public safety and justice sector. Oracle is only seeking to hire CentralSquare engineers from that market. It is not advertising for any roles in that market.”

CentralSquare’s legal counsel raised the issue with Oracle, expressing concern about the use of its confidential information. The database giant, it’s said, offered vague reassurance but otherwise continued its efforts to build up its public safety sector business.

CentralSquare did not respond to a request for comment; Oracle declined to comment.

Retaining key talent, particularly in hard-to-fill technical positions, has long been a challenge for technology companies, one not always met in good faith: In 2015, following a 2010 civil settlement with the US government, Adobe Systems, Apple, Google, Intel Corporation, Intuit, Lucasfilm, and Pixar paid $435m collectively to settle claims that they’d violated antitrust laws by secretly agreeing not to recruit from one another.

The following year, the US Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission issued guidance [PDF] that they intended to prosecute wage-fixing and no-poach agreements as criminal antitrust violations. The first criminal indictment for labour market collusion under this policy was issued in January 2021 against Surgical Care Affiliates in Texas.

Despite this, no-poaching agreements and non-compete agreements remain widespread. The Economic Innovation Group (EIG), a non-profit policy advocacy body created by Napster co-founder and Facebook veteran Sean Parker, said in a 2019 report [PDF] that no-poaching agreements affected 60%t of major franchises in the US in 2016. The EIG report also said that non-compete agreements bound one in five US workers in 2014.

Like no-poaching agreements, non-competes are under pressure around the country from lawmakers due to public dissatisfaction with post-employment contracts, which limit worker mobility and economic opportunity.

During his presidential campaign, US President Joe Biden has said he hoped to work with Congress “to eliminate all non-compete agreements, except the very few that are necessary to protect a narrowly defined category of trade secrets, and outright ban all no-poaching agreements.” In February, US Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) and US Senator Todd Young (R-IN) reintroduced the Workforce Mobility Act, “to limit the use of non-compete agreements that negatively impact American workers.”

New strategies may soon be necessary for businesses seeking to protect intellectual property and limit competition through post-employment covenants.