US orders Google, Facebook and others to reveal details of years of acquisitions

Federal Trade Commission says its focus on smaller company takeovers will help clarify antitrust investigations

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has ordered five major tech companies to hand over detailed information on hundreds of acquisitions made over the past decade, it announced on Tuesday.

As part of its continued antitrust investigations, the agency, which enforces consumer protection laws, has required Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple and Facebook to provide documents and other information on the purpose and scope of their takeovers of smaller companies from 2010 to 2019.