For years, the US government stood by as big tech companies like Facebook and Google growth hacked and gobbled up competitors on their way to dominance, with barely a mention of “anticompetitive” concerns. But that lax attitude is changing. Word continued to leak this week about possible antitrust investigations by the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission, who reportedly divvied up companies like a couple might divide household chores.

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The chatter about 5G is everywhere. It’s a worldwide race. It’s a security challenge. It’s a geopolitical battle between the United States and China. By some accounts, 5G is already here; by others, true 5G is still years away. There is more than a kernel of truth in this rhetorical excess. That’s because the next generation of essential infrastructure in this country will be built using wireless technology.

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Amazon isn’t exactly the most stylish place to shop for clothes. Most of its top-selling women’s fashion items are simple pieces: easy dresses, spandex workout gear, socks, and underwear—a lot of it from brands you’ve probably never heard of. But that doesn’t mean Amazon isn’t a powerhouse for apparel sales. As traditional department stores have declined, Amazon has become one of the most popular clothing retailers in the US, especially among millennials.

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Just when it seemed that things couldn't get much worse for Huawei, it may soon not be able to sell phones with the world’s most popular social networks. Facebook will reportedly no longer allow the Chinese telecom giant to preinstall Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram apps on its phones. According to Reuters, if you already have a Huawei phone you should be able to continue receiving updates to Facebook-owned apps. The change will only affect new phones.

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On Monday the House Judiciary committee announced a bipartisan antitrust probe that has Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon in its crosshairs. The news followed reports that the Federal Trade Commission is examining Amazon’s power over online retailing. Tom Simonite covers artificial intelligence for WIRED. Amazon’s founder and CEO Jeff Bezos appeared untroubled by that attention at a company conference in Las Vegas Thursday.

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YouTube has a child exploitation problem. In February, the platform disabled comments on millions of videos including children 13 and younger after WIRED UK revealed that pedophiles had used the feature to identify videos featuring snippets of nude or sparsely clothed children.

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In May 2019, WIRED joined the One Free Press Coalition, a united group of pre-eminent editors and publishers using their global reach and social platforms to spotlight journalists under attack worldwide. Today, the coalition is issuing the fourth monthly “10 Most Urgent” list of journalists whose press freedoms are being suppressed or whose cases are seeking justice. Jamal Khashoggi, the murdered columnist for The Washington Post, remains atop the list following no independent U.N.

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Amazon’s Alexa is ready to broaden its one-track mind. The virtual assistant can deliver weather forecasts and traffic updates, and tap more than 90,000 additional functions, or “skills,” contributed by outside developers. The catch is that you can generally do only one of those bounteous things at a time. Tom Simonite covers artificial intelligence for WIRED.

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Last week, the Canadian social media company Kik---and an array of prominent backers in the crypto world---launched a $5 million campaign to fund an impending legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission. CEO Ted Livingston said the fight, which centers on Kik’s $100 million initial coin offering in 2017, was worth funding because it could have wide implications for blockchain startups, many of which used ICOs to fund their fledgling ventures.

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As tech giants and lobbying groups race to defang California’s landmark consumer privacy law before it takes effect next year, lawmakers on the other side of the country are considering a bill that's even more drastic. The New York Privacy Act, introduced last month by state senator Kevin Thomas, would give residents there more control over their data than in any other state. It would also require businesses to put their customers’ privacy before their own profits.

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