Six of some of the largest tech companies including Square (NYSE:SQ), PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) are ordered by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to hand over information regarding their payment platforms.
The CFPB notes that payment businesses are network businesses and can gain "tremendous" scale, which can pose new risks and undermine fair competition.
The agency will also dig into China-based tech giants that offer payment services including WeChat Pay and AliPay, the CFPB said in the statement.
One of the agency's main concerns points to whether the operators engage in invasive financial surveillance and combine the data they collect on consumers with their geolocation and browsing data.
"Will they in turn use this data to deepen behavioral advertising, engage in price discrimination, or sell to third parties?"