Italy’s Antitrust Watchdog Initiates Probe Against Apple, Google, Dropbox

TOPLINE

Italian antitrust authorities have launched an investigation into Apple, Google and Dropbox after hearing complaints about unfair commercial practices with their cloud storage services, in a move that comes amid major antitrust investigations against large U.S. tech firms across Europe and other parts of the world.

KEY FACTS

Key Background

The European Union and its member nations have opened other formal and informal probes into big tech companies including Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon. In July, Italian investigators raided the local offices of Amazon and Apple seeking to find out if they colluded in an anti-competitive manner to sell Apple products and Beats headphones. The U.S. Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission and Congress are presently investigating key tech companies over potential antitrust issues.

Tangent

U.S. Attorney General William Barr is pushing to bring an antitrust suit against Google as soon as this month, the New York Times reported last week. While the DOJ’s lawyers have reportedly argued against filing a complaint so early, Barr is pushing to present a complaint ahead of the presidential election in November. But officials are reportedly worried that taking action now may jeopardize the strength of the arguments they are able to present.