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                         The United States vs. Facebook

   Josh Centers

   Facebook's day of reckoning has come. The US Federal Trade Commission
   has filed a [1]lawsuit against Facebook that seeks to split the social
   media giant from the image-sharing social network Instagram and
   messaging app WhatsApp. The FTC is also seeking to prohibit Facebook
   from imposing 'anticompetitive conditions' on software developers and
   require Facebook to seek prior approval for future mergers and
   acquisitions. A [2]separate lawsuit, led by New York Attorney General
   Letitia James and joined by 48 US states and territories (including the
   District of Columbia and Guam), lays out the case against Facebook in
   detail.

   Facebook purchased Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and Whatsapp for
   $19 billion in 2014. The FTC and the attorneys general claim that
   Facebook made both purchases to 'eliminate threats to its monopoly.'
   They also claim that Facebook has engaged in anti-competitive practices
   against third-party developers by allowing access to certain APIs only
   if they agreed not to create features that would compete against
   Facebook.

   [3]Facebook responded by calling the lawsuits 'revisionist history,'
   due to the fact that the FTC approved both mergers in the first place.
   That's a fair point, but given the broad bipartisan support for the
   suit'how do you get 48 attorneys general to agree on anything?'it's
   clear that there's some serious political will to address the problem
   of Facebook's dominant position in social networking. Regardless, don't
   expect anything to happen quickly'these sorts of cases and the appeals
   can drag on for years.

   [4]Read original article

References

   Visible links
   1. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2020/12/ftc-sues-facebook-illegal-monopolization
   2. https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/facebook_complaint_12.9.2020.pdf
   3. https://about.fb.com/news/2020/12/lawsuits-filed-by-the-ftc-and-state-attorneys-general-are-revisionist-history/
   4. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2020/12/ftc-sues-facebook-illegal-monopolization

   Hidden links:
   5. https://tidbits.com/wp/../uploads/2020/12/FTC-flag.png

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