Americans increasingly recognize that tech companies wield tremendous power and deserve greater scrutiny, the law enforcement officials said, and they discussed whether traditional approaches to antitrust issues were still suitable for modern disputes over privacy and the tech business model.

Xavier Becerra, the attorney general of California, cautioned against comparisons to landmark antitrust cases. “Most would agree, this is not Standard Oil, this is not even Microsoft,” he said. But, he added, “all of those situations inform you.”

The Justice Department called the conversation productive, although no decisions were made or announced. The meeting, largely a forum for officials to share ideas, sharply contrasted with Monday’s chaos at the Justice Department over the confusion of whether Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, would leave the job.

Three major issues were broached: the tech business model, which is based on accumulating consumer data; privacy; and user terms and conditions, according to people in the room.

Google came up more than other companies, according to a person in the room who was not authorized to publicly describe the discussion and spoke on the condition of anonymity. A few attorneys general expressed concern about Google’s ability to track the everyday routines of people.

Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, was set to meet with lawmakers in Washington on Friday, including Republicans who plan to ask him about the company’s competitive practices; its work with countries accused of human rights abuses, like China and Russia; and whether its workers and search engine magnify biases.

Technology companies mine consumer behavior online for data, which they then sell on an open marketplace much in the same way that a company might sell oil. A handful of large companies control and sell the vast majority of that data.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Katie Benner and Cecilia Kang © 2018 The New York Times