Fri 20 August 2021:
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a petition for a permanent injunction in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday to stop Facebook from engaging in anti-competitive and monopolistic behavior.
“Facebook’s unlawful course of conduct to maintain its monopoly continues today and must be enjoined. 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 FTC said. “Moreover, Facebook continues to monitor competitive threats and will seek to acquire or kneecap them unless enjoined.”
According to the FTC, Facebook has mostly preserved its monopoly by following CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s approach of purchasing potential competitors rather than fighting with them.
Facebook has consequently tracked such companies in order to acquire them, the filing claimed.
The FTC requested that the court order Facebook to divest from assets, including Instagram and WhatsApp, to restore the competition that would exist absent Facebook’s alleged monopolistic conduct. The FTC also requested that the court order any other equitable relief “necessary to restore competition and remedy the harm to competition” caused by Facebook’s business practices.
Facebook responded in a series of statements via Twitter later on Thursday, saying it is unfortunate that the FTC has chosen to continue a meritless lawsuit against the company despite the court’s initial dismissal of the complaint.
Facebook has stated that there is no valid argument that it has a monopoly, and that the FTC’s accusations are an attempt to rewrite antitrust rules and convince businesses that no sale is ever final.
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