Now we’ll never get those Facebook lasers.
According to a series of lawsuits filed Wednesday by 48 attorneys general and the FTC, Facebook has become a monopoly. The suits allege that Facebook has used its monopolistic power in an “unlawful scheme” to stifle competition, degrade personal privacy, and crush rivals in moves that have landed it in the unfavorable position of being subject to antitrust litigation.
For nearly a decade, Facebook has used its dominance and monopoly power to crush smaller rivals and snuff out competition, all at the expense of everyday users. By using its vast troves of data and money, Facebook has squashed or hindered what the company perceived as potential threats.
New York Attorney General Letitia James
The suit alleges that Facebook has misused its place in the market to acquire of quash its competitors, abuse the privacy of its users, and punish any rivals that refused to be bought out. They notably point to Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 as examples of this behavior.
The suits ask the court to put a stop to Facebook’s alleged illegal behavior, block any new acquisitions by the company, and potentially even force it to divest itself of Instagram and WhatsApp. In addition, the state attorneys general requested that Facebook be required to seek approval for any acquisitions valued at $10 million or more.
Facebook’s actions to entrench and maintain its monopoly deny consumers the benefits of competition. Our aim is to roll back Facebook’s anticompetitive conduct and restore competition so that innovation and free competition can thrive.
Ian Conner, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition
For their part, Facebook has shot back, denying the allegations.
Instagram and WhatsApp became the incredible products they are today because Facebook invested billions of dollars, and years of innovation and expertise, to develop new features and better experiences for the millions who enjoy those products. The most important fact in this case, which the Commission does not mention in its 53-page complaint, is that it cleared these acquisitions years ago. The government now wants a do-over, sending a chilling warning to American business that no sale is ever final.
Jennifer Newstead, Facebook vice president and general counsel
Facebook previously defended themselves from these allegations after a report by the House Antitrust Subcommittee released back in October. During the hearings, the Subcommittee released emails by Mark Zuckerberg which were somewhat damaging. One from 2012 read as follows:
These businesses are nascent but the networks are established, the brands are already meaningful, and if they grow to a large scale they could be very disruptive to us.
email from Mark Zuckerberg to the-company-CFO David Ebersman, 2012
Roughly 45 minutes later, he sent the following in an attempt to walk back the previous comment:
I didn’t mean to imply that we’d be buying them to prevent them from competing with us in any way.
email from Mark Zuckerberg to the-company-CFO David Ebersman, 2012
Very convincing.
The news has reached the company’s employees, though not through the company itself; from articles posted by colleagues on the company’s internal message board. Though Facebook’s newsroom did post the following tweet:
The subdued response may relate to a directive from Zuckerberg himself back in October warning employees not to discuss antitrust issues in the event of future legal action.
Given that, you know, anything that any of you say internally is, of course, available to be subpoenaed or used in any of these investigations, I just think we should make sure that people aren’t just, you know, mouthing off about this and saying things that may reflect inaccurate data, or generally just are kind of incomplete. You shouldn’t be emailing about these things and you shouldn’t really be discussing this in non-privileged forums across the company.
Source: Buzzfeed News
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