By Vass Bednar and Robin Shaban, Special to National Post
President Joe Biden’s recent nomination and appointment, respectively, of superstar scholars Lina Khan to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Tim Wu to work on technology and competition policy at the National Economic Council have reignited optimism that the United States government will finally take action against Big Tech giants like Google and Facebook for their anti-competitive behaviour. Why isn’t Canada taking a similar approach?
In 2019, the Competition Bureau assured Canadians that it was “monitoring” the tech giants for anti-competitive practices. Since then, it launched an investigation into Amazon. But when compared to other competition authorities, like the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FTC in the U.S. and the European Commission, the Competition Bureau’s enforcement in the digital sphere has been lacking.
Since 2011, the Competition Bureau has launched five modest investigations into the FAANGs: Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google. In that same time, authorities in the U.S. and the European Union have launched nearly double and triple that amount, respectively.
