Karimi & Associates Law Firm presents according to Jurist:
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed an amended complaint against Facebook in the agency’s ongoing federal antitrust case. The FTC’s amended complaint comes after a federal judge in June dismissed the agency’s lawsuit due to lack of evidence to support claims that Facebook is engaged in unlawful monopolization but allowed the agency to submit an amended complaint after resolving the issues in the complaint.
The complaint’s core allegation is that after repeated failed attempts to develop innovative mobile features for its network, Facebook instead resorted to an illegal buy-or-bury scheme to maintain its dominance. According to the amended complaint, Facebook pulled a “bait and switch” on developers by altering the conditions of its platform, thereby limiting their capacity to interoperate. The FTC has also alleged that Facebook’s monopoly over personal social networking has damaged competition and reduced consumer choice due to a lack of genuine competition. Furthermore, FTC accused Facebook that it has made a “surveillance-based advertising model” and imposed heavy burdens in this regard on its users.
Holly Vedova, Acting Director of FTC’s Bureau of Competition has stated: “Facebook lacked the business acumen and technical talent to survive the transition to mobile. After failing to compete with new innovators, Facebook illegally bought or buried them when their popularity became an existential threat.”
As a response to the amended complaint, Facebook tweeted “the FTC’s claims are an effort to rewrite antitrust laws and upend settled expectations of merger review, declaring to the business community that no sale is ever final.”