With Alibaba investigation, China gets tougher on technology firms

China has produced its own crop of powerful internet titans, and they have been celebrated as icons of the nation's technological advancement.

China’s internet giants came to dominate segments of the world’s No. 2 economy because Beijing’s authoritarian government largely looked the other way while they grew and grew. Now the firms have the regulators’ full attention.
 
The country’s market watchdog said on Thursday that it had opened an investigation into whether the e-commerce group Alibaba had engaged in monopolistic practices, such as restricting vendors from selling merchandise on other platforms. Separately on Thursday, four Chinese financial regulatory agencies, including the central bank, said they would meet soon with Ant Group, Alibaba’s finance-focused sister firm, to discuss new supervision. The stepped-up