North Carolina will be among the states participating in an antitrust investigation of social media giant Facebook.

“I can confirm that Attorney General [Josh] Stein is participating in the Facebook investigation,” a spokesperson tells WRAL TechWire.

Stein is joining some 36 state attorneys general who are launching antitrust probes of Facebook and Alphabet, the parent of Google.

The investigations were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The Google probe will be formally announced at a press conference in Washington, D.C. on Monday, reported John McKinnon for the WSJ in Friday’s newspaper.

And the probes will be bi-partisan with the Republican attorney general of Texas leading the Google probe, the WSJ added.

“The attorneys general will examine the impact of Google on digital advertising markets, this person said, as well as potential harms to consumers from their information and ad choices being concentrated in one company,” McKinnon noted.

Next hurdle for Facebook after $5B fine: An FTC investigation

Another bi-partisan group led by New York’s Letitia James, a Democrat, will target Facebook, the paper said.

“We continue to engage in bipartisan conversations about the unchecked power of large tech companies,” Ms. James said in a statement to the newspaper. “The attorneys general involved have concerns over the control of personal data by large tech companies and will hold them accountable for anticompetitive practices that endanger privacy and consumer data.”

Google told the newspaper that is is cooperating with the investigations.

Facebook says it plans to work constructively with state attorneys general, The Associated Press reported.

Facebook’s Will Castleberry, a vice president of state and local policy, said in a statement Friday that the company welcomes a conversation with policymakers about the competitive environment in which it operates.

Read the fullstory online.

Feds fine YouTube $170M for collecting kids’ data without parents’ consent