Amid a Facebook merchandising blitz , the Federal Trade Commission on Thursday refiled its antitrust lawsuit against the company , claiming that it “ holds monopoly power ” in the social medium market , and asseverate that monopoly by “ consistently ” purchasing rival and creating other barriers to competition .
The refiled cause is seen as the FTC ’s first major struggle as it seeks to rein in the dominance of major tech companies that have amount to dominate American life . It is also seen as a test of the office ’s Modern chair , Lina Khan , who was a vocal critic of Big Tech in her work in academia and whom Facebookarguedshould recuse herself because of that work .
“ Facebook is the universe ’s predominant online social web , with a purport three billion - plus regular users . Facebook has maintain its monopoly position in substantial part by pursuing Chief Executive Officer ( ‘ CEO ’ ) Mark Zuckerberg ’s scheme , utter in 2008 : ‘ it is good to buy than compete , ’ ” the FTC ill say . “ True to that maxim , Facebook has systematically tracked potential rivals and acquire companies that it view as serious competitive threats . Facebook supplement this anticompetitive acquisition strategy with anticompetitive conditional dealing policies , plan to erect or maintain entree barrier and to nullify perceived private-enterprise threats . ”
Photo: Chip Somodevilla (Getty Images)
The novel filing describes schemes in which Facebook wield its supremacy to undermine any electric potential for competition ; not by out - innovating other company , but by imposing contractual restriction on developers that instantaneously forbid them from competing against Facebook . The outcome — obturate the increase of emerge potential rivals in its industry to further its monopoly — is no unlike , the FTC said , than had Facebook simply paid its competitors to disappear .
“ Facebook continues to hold and operate the assets it acquired unlawfully and continues to keep them positioned to provide a protective ‘ moat ’ around its personal social networking monopoly , ” the complaint says .
Asked for comment , a Facebook spokesperson point Gizmodo to a tweet from the company saying it was “ reviewing the FTC ’s improve complaint ” and would have “ more to say before long . ”
“ Facebook lacked the commercial enterprise insightfulness and technical endowment to survive the conversion to mobile . After failing to vie with unexampled trailblazer , Facebook illegally buy or buried them when their popularity became an existential threat , ” said Holly Vedova , acting director of the FTC ’s Bureau of Competition . “ This conduct is no less anticompetitive than if Facebook had bribed emerging app competitors not to vie . ”
add together Vedova : “ The antitrust laws were enact to prevent exactly this eccentric of illegal activity by monopolists . Facebook ’s action have suppressed innovation and Cartesian product quality improvements . And they have degraded the social internet experience , subjecting exploiter to lower levels of privacy and data protections and more intrusive ads . The FTC ’s action today seeks to put an last to this illegal activity and restore competition for the benefit of Americans and honest line of work alike . ”
The decision to register the charge was approved in a 3 - 2 voter turnout , with the agency ’s two Republican commissioners vote against the move . Facebook has until October 4 to respond to the complaint .
News of the refiled suit , which many onlookers expected , came amid a major public relations push by the company , which include the announcement ofa new “ transparency report”about pop content on its platform and thelaunch of a virtual reality spacein which user of its Oculus VR headsets can remotely give ear meetings in digital form .
In add-on to Facebook , the company also owns Instagram and WhatsApp , two of the most wide used platform worldwide , and are prime examples of the company using its vast resources to dominate the social media securities industry .
The FTC was force to refile its historic suit against Facebook after a federal judgetossed its original complaintin June after agreeing with Facebook ’s motion to dismiss on the footing that the politics ’s lawsuit failed to adequately support its claims that Facebook is , in fact , a monopoly .
take the full FTC v. Facebook antitrust suit below
Update 2:35 p.m. ET : In a financial statement emailed to Gizmodo , Facebook refuted the FTC ’s assertion that it is a monopoly . Its response echoes the line it made the first time the FTC sued the ship’s company over alleged antitrust irreverence .
“ It is inauspicious that despite the court ’s dismission of the ill and decision that it lack the basis for a claim , the FTC has chosen to continue this meritless causa . There was no valid claim that Facebook was a monopolist — and that has not change , ” the companionship said . “ Our learning of Instagram and WhatsApp were review and cleared many geezerhood ago , and our platform policies were true . The FTC ’s claims are an effort to rewrite antimonopoly law and upend go down expectations of merger recap , declaring to the business community that no sales event is ever last . We struggle to win citizenry ’s prison term and attention every day , and we will go forward smartly defending our society . ”
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