The year antitrust arrived

Hey, it’s Leah in Washington. Antitrust enforcers won’t stop at Adobe-Figma. But first...Three things you need to know today:• Apple will ha [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hey, it’s Leah in Washington. Antitrust enforcers won’t stop at Adobe-Figma. But first... Three things you need to know today: • Apple will halt [sales of watches in the US]( • Amazon is talking with a [regional sports broadcaster]( • OpenAI said its board [can overrule the CEO]( A fig leaf Eleven years after they waved through Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram, antitrust enforcers planted a marker that tech titans can’t always just buy up their competitors. Facing opposition from regulators in the US, UK and Europe, Adobe Inc. [dropped its $20 billion quest]( to acquire its startup rival, Figma Inc., on Monday. If big tech likes to “move fast and break things,” antitrust is moving slowly toward breaking things up. That’s why it took until 2023 — years after the techlash began — for Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Amazon.com Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. to see their first real antitrust battles make it to court, along with a resurgence of regulatory scrutiny for Microsoft Corp. and Adobe. Adobe, while nowhere near as big as its tech brethren, has long dominated creative software with Photoshop and Illustrator. The San Jose, California, software maker only caved after all three major enforcers indicated opposition. Though the companies’ statements make reference only to the UK and European Commission, they’d met with the US Justice Department last week to hear similar concerns about the merger. That’s one of the key differences between Adobe’s deal and Microsoft’s ultimately successful bid to purchase Activision Blizzard Inc.: Europe had okayed the tie-up. It wasn’t the first loss for Lina Khan’s Federal Trade Commission this year. The agency failed to block Meta’s purchase of the virtual reality startup Within Ltd. The bigger battle between Meta and the FTC is over a proposal to unwind the company’s acquisition of Instagram and Whatsapp. It’s a good example of the glacial pace of antitrust. That case still has no trial date, though it could happen next year. Meanwhile, the FTC’s suit against Amazon is pending in Seattle with a potential trial by 2026. Antitrust enforcement moves slowly, but it can be powerful — as Adobe shows. Five years after the EU fined Google a record €4 billion, the company headed to trial against the Justice Department over allegations it illegally sought to maintain its monopoly of online search and advertising. The judge in the case won’t hear final arguments until May. In the meantime, both [the Justice Department]( and [the EU]( are taking aim at another part of Alphabet’s business — the technology used to buy, sell and serve ads and videos on websites — building off work by the UK in the same area. And both the US and EU are [seeking a breakup](. The EU and UK are also turning their collective attention to mobile. Europe has new [digital gatekeeper rules]( that go into effect in March and is expected to levy an [antitrust fine]( on Apple Inc. next year. The UK is [probing]( mobile browsers and cloud gaming. Meanwhile, the Justice Department is quietly plugging along at building its own case against Apple, an antitrust probe that’s been in the works since 2019. All of which is to say that big tech’s antitrust reckoning may have only just begun. —[Leah Nylen](mailto:lnylen2@bloomberg.net) The big story Amazon sees Project Kuiper as a way to transform the business into a telecommunications giant with space internet, but first the company needs to [get more than 3,000 satellites into orbit](. One to watch [Watch the Bloomberg Technology TV interview]( with Amazon Web Services Vice President Mai-Lan Tomsen Bukovec. Get fully charged India will ease century-old telecom laws [to attract investors](. The Nasdaq 100 index dropped Zoom, signaling an [end of an era for the pandemic darling](. The EU launched its first probe of Elon Musk’s X [since new disinformation rules went into force](. One of Apple’s last remaining designers from the Jony Ive era [stepped down](. Nvidia staffers warned the CEO that AI could pose a [grave threat to ethnic minorities](. Look back at 2023 Startups made strides in AI this year, but they depend on the [largesse of big tech companies](. ChatGPT couldn’t forecast the stock market [any better than professional investors](. After spending $15.7 billion to buy Tableau in 2019, Salesforce [gutted the company this year](. More from Bloomberg Get Bloomberg Tech weeklies in your inbox: - [Cyber Bulletin]( for coverage of the shadow world of hackers and cyber-espionage - [Game On]( for reporting on the video game business - [Power On]( for Apple scoops, consumer tech news and more - [Screentime]( for a front-row seat to the collision of Hollywood and Silicon Valley - [Soundbite]( for reporting on podcasting, the music industry and audio trends - [Q&AI]( for answers to all your questions about AI Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. Want to sponsor this newsletter? [Get in touch here](. 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