US antitrust case: What lies ahead for Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon

US Senator Elizabeth Warren has made perhaps the most detailed case for breaking up and regulating the four companies

The US government is sharpening its antitrust scrutiny of Big Tech. In a sign that formal inquiries could be forthcoming, the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission last week divvied up antitrust oversight for Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google. While the timing caught some by surprise, the companies have been preparing for this moment for a while, hiring lawyers and lobbyists and publicly making their case. History may be on their side: Corporate breakups are a significant, and rare, undertaking for the US government. 

The last major breakup of a monopoly was AT&T in 1982.