48 States Launch Antitrust Probe of Google

Nearly all the country’s attorneys general are now putting their weight behind antitrust investigations of Big Tech. And while the state-led probes will turn up the heat on companies like Google and Facebook, they will also likely add pressure to federal regulators who have launched their own investigations into the industry, according to antitrust experts.

A bipartisan group of attorneys general from 48 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico announced Monday they would pool resources to probe Google’s advertising business. The announcement follows that of a smaller, overlapping...

There is a major force uniting America’s fiercely partisan politicians: big technology companies. Democrats and Republicans at the federal and state levels are coming together to scrutinize the power of the Silicon Valley giants and, potentially, to rein them in.

Letitia James, the Democratic attorney general of New York, announced on Friday that attorneys general in eight states — four Democrats and four Republicans — and the District of Columbia had begun an antitrust investigation of Facebook.

Next up for state regulators is Google. A similarly bipartisan group led by...