Zillow Group isn’t typically counted in the list of big bad tech companies that deserve antitrust restraint, but it has become clear that, under Lina Khan, the Federal Trade Commission is casting a wide net for tech targets. As we reported on Thursday, Khan has reopened a review of Zillow’s $500 million purchase of ShowingTime, which schedules online showings of homes for sale, despite the review being effectively closed in June. Nevertheless, Zillow said today it had completed the purchase, basically daring the FTC to do something about it.
This should not be the hill that anyone wants to die on. If Khan wants to expend political capital going after big tech, she might want to concentrate on those tech companies that are actually big. Compared to a brand new startup, Zillow is no minnow, sure. But with a market capitalization of $22.5 billion, $3.3 billion in annual revenue and 5,500 employees, it is on the small side of mature tech companies (Facebook, the smallest of the five big tech companies, has ten times the employees, 25 times the revenue and a market capitalization of nearly a trillion dollars).
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