‘High’ Threshold for Regulating Big Tech’s Data: Justice Dept.

Tech companies such as Alphabet Inc.'s Google or Facebook Inc. aren’t likely to face U.S. antitrust enforcement actions based on the large amounts of user data they amass, a Justice Department official said Aug. 20.

“The threshold’s pretty high,” said DOJ Deputy Assistant Attorney General Barry Nigro during a question-and-answer session at a Technology Policy Institute conference in Aspen, Colo.

Data on customers is part of a company’s assets, he said. U.S. antitrust officials will take those assets into account when they’re looking at mergers, but it’s much harder to make a case stick for dominance in data.

“If there ...