Security News > 2020 > December > 48 U.S. States and FTC are suing Facebook for illegal monopolization
The US Federal Trade Commission and a coalition of 48 state attorneys general on Wednesday filed a pair of sweeping antitrust suits against Facebook, alleging that the company abused its power in the marketplace to neutralize competitors through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp and depriving users of better privacy-friendly alternatives.
Specifically, the lawsuits seek to rescind the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, spinning off both platforms into independent companies, prohibit Facebook from imposing anti-competitive conditions on software developers, and require the company to seek prior notice and approval for future mergers and acquisitions.
"The FTC and states stood by for years while Facebook invested billions of dollars and millions of hours to make Instagram and WhatsApp into the apps that users enjoy today."
Besides calling for a breakup of Facebook, the FTC also accused the company of imposing anti-competitive conditions on third-party software developers' access to Facebook APIs by forcing them to refrain from developing competing functionalities and adding features that promote other social networking services.
"The price of using Facebook has stayed the same over the years, but the cost of using it, calculated in terms of the amount of data that users now must provide, is an order of magnitude above what it was when Facebook faced real competition," Srinivasan said.