46 States, Washington D.C., and Guam along with the FTC sue Facebook

[Dominik W]

Summary

As stated in the title, Facebook has been sued. This has been excepted for a while now. It is mainly concerning Facebook's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, along with privacy concerns.

Links to the lawsuits:

• States: https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/facebook_complaint_12.9.2020.pdf
• FTC: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/1910134fbcomplaint.pdf

 

Quotes

Quote

Federal and state regulators, who have been investigating the company for over 18 months, said in separate lawsuits that Facebook’s purchases, especially Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and WhatsApp for $19 billion two years later, eliminated competition that could have one day challenged the company’s dominance.

Quote

In emails revealed by the House of Representatives’ antitrust subcommittee hearing this past summer, Zuckerberg characterized his intent to buy Instagram in emails to his David Ebersman, then Facebook’s chief financial officer, as both a way to neutralize a competitor while at the same time improving Facebook — by incorporating the features its competitor invented before any other upstart has enough time to catch up and pose a similar threat.

“One way of looking at this is that what we’re really buying is time. Even if some new competitors springs up, buying Instagram, Path, Foursquare, etc now will give us a year or more to integrate their dynamics before anyone can get close to their scale again. Within that time, if we incorporate the social mechanics they were using, those new products won’t get much traction since we’ll already have their mechanics deployed at scale,” Zuckerberg explained.

Within the hour, Zuckerberg sent a follow-up reply, writing, “I didn’t mean to imply that we’d be buying them to prevent them from competing with us in any way,” he wrote. Antitrust lawyers saw that as an admission of guilt from Zuckerberg, who appeared to realize that what he wrote in those emails regarding his acquisition strategy constituted anticompetitive behavior.

Quote

Another pillar of the states’ antitrust lawsuit is whether Facebook acquiring a company made the product worse off from a consumer benefit standpoint — in particular, with regard to privacy. Facebook has long claimed that its resources and scale are responsible for turning apps like Instagram and WhatsApp into gigantic platforms with billions of users. But investigators targeting the deals for anticompetitive behavior are examining how, for instance, Facebook’s purchase of WhatsApp and its decision to later utilize WhatsApp user data may harmed consumers and stifled competition from rivals with better privacy practices.

Notably, the creators of both Instagram and WhatsApp have left Facebook — some, like WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton, vocally disagreeing with the direction Facebook took his product and what the company has done to privacy in general. WhatsApp’s other co-founder, Jan Koum, left shortly after Acton, having reportedly clashed with Facebook leadership over data-sharing initiative. Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger left the company over years of built-up tensions between the photo-sharing app and its relationship to Facebook’s business.

My thoughts

My thought is simple: FINALLY! I really despise seeing the Facebook logo every time I open Instagram. They do have too much control, and it is obvious that Facebook can't handle that. Owning 3 of the largest social media platforms seems monopolistic to me.

 

Sources

https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/9/22158483/facebook-antritrust-lawsuit-anti-competition-behavior-attorneys-general

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/technology/facebook-antitrust-monopoly.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/09/ftc-and-several-states-launch-antitrust-lawsuits-against-facebook.html

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/09/944073889/48-attorneys-general-sue-facebook-alleging-illegal-power-grabs-to-neutralize-riv

[Sauron]

That took longer than it should have

[Helpful Tech Witch]

I wonder if Illinois is on that list fo states. Because they just finished a lawsuit against FB for the facial recognition stuff that wasnt in the terms of service.

[Dominik W]

44 minutes ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

I wonder if Illinois is on that list fo states. Because they just finished a lawsuit against FB for the facial recognition stuff that wasnt in the terms of service.

Yes, they are.

Here's a link: https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/facebook_complaint_12.9.2020.pdf

[piratemonkey]

THANK GOODNESS

 

I hate using instagram cuz it's owned by FB. Hopefully they do have to divest ig and WhatsApp. 

Spoiler

Also I was going to make a post but you beat me to it lol

 

[Random_Person1234]

I’m amazed in this political environment that they were able to amass a coalition of 46 states, DC, Guam, and the federal government.

[Dabombinable]

4 minutes ago, Random_Person1234 said:

I’m amazed in this political environment that they were able to amass a coalition of 46 states, DC, Guam, and the federal government.

I think they are mainly agreeing because they don't want a robot uprising.

[piratemonkey]

2 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

I think they are mainly agreeing because they don't want a robot uprising.

So they're replacing mark? The fella is a literal robot lizard man thing

[Kilrah]

26 minutes ago, Dominik W said:

I really despise seeing the Facebook logo every time I open Facebook

[whm1974]

6 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

I think they are mainly agreeing because they don't want a robot uprising.

Humans can easily prevent this by designing Limited Functionality into said Robots. Don't allow them to program themselves.

[Salv8 (sam)]

hooray!

something good to come out of this shitty year.

[whm1974]

28 minutes ago, Dominik W said:

 My thought is simple: FINALLY! I really despise seeing the Facebook logo every time I open Facebook.

This makes no sense as every Company puts their Logo on their Website....

[Dominik W]

22 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

18 minutes ago, whm1974 said:

This makes no sense as every Company puts their Logo on their Website....

I meant Instagram 

[whm1974]

3 minutes ago, Dominik W said:

I meant Instagram 

Same thing applies.

[BuckGup]

Fire ZuccBot9000 while they are at it

[Lurick]

How is the first part of this different than literally ANY other company buying a startup and integrating them into the company or just shutting them down? Like sure, hate Failbook all day if you want, but if you're going to go after them in court for something, be honest and don't drum up bullcrap just because "I hate them" or whatever the flavor of the day is to dislike a company. Also, the FTC approved these mergers and acquisitions to begin with and nowhere do I see them saying Facebook broke any merger conditions. I don't see anything of substance here aside going after them "cuz they bad".

 

The privacy stuff is a different matter but the whole first part is just bullcrap imo.

[Blade of Grass]

10 minutes ago, Lurick said:

How is the first part of this different than literally ANY other company buying a startup and integrating them into the company or just shutting them down? Like sure, hate Failbook all day if you want, but if you're going to go after them in court for something, be honest and don't drum up bullcrap just because "I hate them" or whatever the flavor of the day is to dislike a company. Also, the FTC approved these mergers and acquisitions to begin with and nowhere do I see them saying Facebook broke any merger conditions. I don't see anything of substance here aside going after them "cuz they bad".

 

The privacy stuff is a different matter but the whole first part is just bullcrap imo.

Buying your competitor to reduce competition is illegal. It's different than buying a product you think is good and would benefit your company, because the motivation is different. One of the core arguments in the case (from a brief overview I saw on the Verge) is that Mark sent emails that discussed their anti-competitive motivation in the acquisition.

[Dabombinable]

32 minutes ago, whm1974 said:

Humans can easily prevent this by designing Limited Functionality into said Robots. Don't allow them to program themselves.

Too late, the Zuck 1000 is already in every one.

[Lurick]

2 minutes ago, Blade of Grass said:

Buying your competitor to reduce competition is illegal. It's different than buying a product you think is good and would benefit your company, because the motivation is different. One of the core arguments in the case (from a brief overview I saw on the Verge) is that Mark sent emails that discussed their anti-competitive motivation in the acquisition.

Hmmm, I guess it's a syntax wording in how the companies are bought up because I've heard plenty of times of companies buying up other companies and just shuttering the product or something along those lines without issue.

[whm1974]

1 minute ago, Lurick said:

Hmmm, I guess it's a syntax wording in how the companies are bought up because I've heard plenty of times of companies buying up other companies and just shuttering the product or something along those lines without issue.

Maybe they are just brought out to get their IP?

[Lurick]

3 minutes ago, whm1974 said:

Maybe they are just brought out to get their IP?

Yah, there are plenty of good reasons to buy a company. Sometimes the people are good and the product sucks, other times you want the IP or other capital or customer lists or something but I could have sworn I've heard of companies like Google buying up smaller companies that are a threat and then that product just disappears and nothing ever comes out of the larger company either.

[Kilrah]

8 minutes ago, Lurick said:

Hmmm, I guess it's a syntax wording in how the companies are bought up because I've heard plenty of times of companies buying up other companies and just shuttering the product or something along those lines without issue.

Buying a startup that isn't competing just yet is OK, buying an established competitor isn't.

[Blade of Grass]

5 minutes ago, Lurick said:

Hmmm, I guess it's a syntax wording in how the companies are bought up because I've heard plenty of times of companies buying up other companies and just shuttering the product or something along those lines without issue.

Yeah, like whm said, could be buying for IP, or for people, product, brand etc. But buying with the purpose of reducing competition (current or future) is illegal (and Zuck basically said that in an email). 

 

Google is a great example of a company that buys tons of other companies, but hasn't been slammed for anti-competitive acquisitions (yet). They have a lot of guidance internally on language, and this article even touches on more failures by Zuck to be careful with language. 

https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/7/21358441/google-alphabet-training-documents-antitrust-search-legal

 

[Blade of Grass]

1 minute ago, Kilrah said:

Buying a startup that isn't competing just yet is OK, buying an established competitor isn't.

That's not really true, you see mergers/acquisitions with large established companies all the time that aren't rejected. Just look to recent acquisitions in the beer industry. 

[Vishera]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

That took longer than it should have

Due to how decentralized the United States is,bureaucracy is a nightmare.