Japanese regulator to business practices of tech giants

TOKYO, Japan – Japans Fair Trade Commission is set to launch a comprehensive survey in January 2019 to check the business practices of certain IT giants.

The survey is meant to learn how 4 giant companies that offer shopping and online search services, including Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple, conduct their business. The planned survey is also designed to establish regulations on how to deal with issues that may be caused by their huge economic power.

There are growing concerns that these tech companies may force unfair transactions on smaller business partners because of their overpowering market shares.

The Fair Trade Commission is to establish regulatory principles to prevent possible abuse of power and set certain measures like rewriting relevant laws.

There are already reported cases of smaller companies being forced to accept unfair deals with bigger tech firms, but the full story cant be identified due to some smaller companies declining to give their full cooperation due to established confidentiality clauses.

This monitoring organization will consist of economics, lawyers, and IT specialists among other experts in various industries to formulate regulations for regulatory authorities approval.

The collected data will have economic value and are necessary to avoid abuse and promote fairness and transparency.