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

[Dominik W]

1 minute ago, Blade of Grass said:

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. 

Great example! Anheuser-Busch has bought out many other brewers, and they are essentially a monopoly now.

[Lurick]

4 minutes ago, Blade of Grass said:

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

 

Yah, so I guess it's all about any emails then in this case which did expose it and not being careful externally with wording too. I still take some issue with the fact these mergers were approved to begin with BUT I can see if Facebook lied about intentions and now they're exposed as having lied then I can see how they're now going after them.

[Sauron]

16 minutes ago, Vishera said:

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

They can get things done really fast if it's for the benefit of a megacorp not so much if it's to their detriment

[Nowak]

Ay, Mass is on there.

[whm1974]

1 hour ago, Dominik W said:

Great example! Anheuser-Busch has bought out many other brewers, and they are essentially a monopoly now.

You can easily buy other brands of beer. There are even multiple Microbreweries around.

[Jet_ski]

I’m still disappointed and here’s why. When the gov pursues an anti-trust case like this after the acquisition has cemented, it almost always ends up fining the company. They should have never let these acquisitions go through to begin with.

 

Say Instagram and WhatsApp are worth 25% of Facebook’s $680 billion market capitalization. Even with a $50 billion fine, Facebook makes massive profits on the deal. And the actual fines would be much much smaller than that.

[CarlBar]

8 hours 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.

 

Sure, but my understanding is mergers that stifle competition by killing off the competitor in question are illegal. A merger that stifles future completion by diversifying your product to create a better product that is harder to compete with because it's so good.. And it's clear from the structure and content of the email quoted that this was by far and away the  primary interest there. personally i interpreted the comment vis a vis Instagram/whats-app competing as simply noting it was gonig to remove a source of competition. They had products that coexisted in a single business space, every merger between two business for which that is true have this as a thing though. Noting it is liekl saying water is wet. It's not remotely grounds for going after FB on anti-competition grounds.

 

Now that doesn't mean i don't think that the end result wasn't anti-competitive, but thats strictly because of the situation surrounding the merger at the time. What separates an ok from a bad merger is supposed to be how much other competition there is.

 

5 hours ago, Jet_ski said:

I’m still disappointed and here’s why. When the gov pursues an anti-trust case like this after the acquisition has cemented, it almost always ends up fining the company. They should have never let these acquisitions go through to begin with.

 

I agree and not just for that reason. Not only as you say is it unlikely to have any real effect, but more importantly there's a double standard going on here i really don't like. When a regulatory agency says "No this merger would be illegal you can't do it"  the companies have to abide by that. Yet what we have here is the US government and co coming in after that fact and saying that FB did somthing illegal after the regulatory agency ruled it legal in the past. FB, (or whoever) is required to abide by the judgement they make but no one else is.

 

I mean if they can prove they manipulated, coerced, or bribed a decision out of the regulators, by all means throw the book at them. Likewise if the regulator decides after the fact it made an honest mistake and needs to take corrective action, it should be allowed to do that, but again that shouldn't involve levelling criminal charges at anyone, except possibly criminal incompetence charges at appropriate members of the regulatory agency. It should be a regulatory matter dealt with via powers given to the agency/s for that purpose. The courts should only get involved if the decision is challenged in a court of law..

 

Arguably the lack of that kind of legal accountability is why the regulatory bodies make these kinds of mistakes. There's little if any blowback if they get it wrong for them, it all falls on the companies, and if they get it right praise and rounds at the bar for everyone.

 

Like i said i think action to produce greater competition needs to be taken and Facebook's current position is anti-competitive. I just don't think criminal charges are how such a thing should be dealt.

 

[Brooksie359]

10 hours 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.

Honestly I am not surprised. Alot of people hate Facebook especially the government.