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- The United States government and 48 states are suing Facebook over allegations of unfair competition.
- He accuses the Internet company of having built an illegal monopoly.
- Among other things, the takeover of the Instagram photography service in 2012 and the WhatsApp chat service in 2014 are reported.
- Facebook rejects the accusations.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and a nonpartisan alliance of states led by New York Attorney General Letitia James filed their lawsuits against Facebook on Wednesday. The FTC accuses the internet company of having followed a “systematic strategy” when buying Instagram and WhatsApp to eliminate threats to its own monopoly.
The lawsuit proposes a possible measure to force Facebook to sell individual business units. In recent years, the group has assembled the technical infrastructure behind its online network platform, in addition to Instagram and WhatsApp. That would make a split technically more difficult.
Facebook has used its monopoly power to crack down on competition.
New York Attorney General James said: “Facebook has used its monopoly power to crush smaller rivals and crack down on competition, all at the expense of everyday users.” The lawsuit should send a clear message to Facebook and other companies: that attempts to stifle competition, hamper innovation, or reduce privacy protections would be carried out with all might.
Facebook talks about competition
Facebook bought Instagram for around $ 1 billion and WhatsApp for around $ 22 billion. At the time, the acquisitions did not elicit any objection from regulators in the US, even if critics argued that Facebook had brought in competitors who might have turned dangerous.
The online network claims that both services could have reached their current size with more than 1 billion users, mostly thanks to Facebook’s technical platform. Also, there is still a lot of competition. Facebook founder and boss Mark Zuckerberg had also tried to buy the Snapchat photo app. However, its founders rejected the offer.
Pending proceedings against Google
For a long time, online heavyweights were very loosely regulated in the US domestic market.In the end, however, the mood changed. In October, the government and eleven states attacked the Internet giant Google with a competitive lawsuit. The claim is that Google is illegally protecting its dominant position in Internet searches and associated advertising.
The company rejected this. Legal experts doubt the lawsuit will succeed. Among other things, it has to show that American consumers are hurt by Google’s anti-competitive behavior.