The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has sued Facebook for illegally maintaining its monopolization in personal social networking market throughout the years-long course of anticompetitive conduct. The FTC alleges that Facebook has engaged in a systematic strategy to eliminate threats to its monopoly, for instance acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. This strategy harms competition and lessen consumers’ choices.
The FTC alleges that Facebook is targeting potential competitive threats to its monopoly power. In addition to this, FTC also alleges that Facebook has imposed anticompetitive conditions on third-party software developers’ access to valuable interconnections to its platform such as Facebook shut down the API that would have allowed Vine, which was an app launched by Twitter, to access friends via Facebook.
The FTC is seeking a permanent injunction in federal court that could, among other things: require divestitures of assets, including Instagram and WhatsApp; prohibit Facebook from imposing anticompetitive conditions on software developers; and require Facebook to seek prior notice and approval for future mergers and acquisitions. The FTC’s aim is restoring competition so that innovation by ending Facebook’s anticompetitive conduct.
(FTC – 9.12.2020)
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