Japan has followed the United States, Australia, and numerous countries around the world in preparing to heavily regulate big tech companies, including Apple, due to antitrust disputes and fears about market control (via Reuters).
Japan is reportedly "laying the groundwork" to regulate big tech companies including Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook. Kazuyuki Furuya, chairman of Japan's Fair Trade Commission (FTC), said that Tokyo will join global efforts to regulate digital platform operators.
"If the size of any merger or business-tie up is big, we can launch an anti-monopoly investigation into the buyer's process of acquiring a start-up," Furuya told Reuters. "We're closely watching developments including in Europe."
Furuya expressed the need for global coordination when regulating large technology companies, particularly since they tend to have similar business practices across the globe.
We'll work closely with our U.S. and European counterparts, and respond if to any moves that hamper competition.
If digital platform providers are found to be abusing their dominant market positions against the interests of consumers, the FTC says that it is ready to act decisively with probes that will "push through aggressively." The FTC will also investigate the Japanese smartphone market and determine if there can be improvements made to encourage competition.
Major antitrust inquiries have now been undertaken in the United States, the European Union, Italy, Australia, Russia, and South Korea.
In particular, the European Union is preparing forceful regulations for big tech, including compiling a "hit-list" of companies and a wide-reaching Digital Services Act that could ban tech companies from pre-installing apps and force them to share data with their competitors.
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