47 US Attorneys General Are Investigating Facebook For Antitrust Violations 40
New York State Attorney General Letitia James announced Tuesday that 47 attorneys general from states and U.S. territories plan to take part in a New York-led antitrust probe into Facebook. Shares of Facebook fell as much as 2.2% on the news. From a report: The multistate investigation was first announced in September with participation from seven other states, but it has since expanded considerably. The probe will zero in on Facebook's dominance in the social media industry and whether it broke any state or federal laws as a result of any anticompetitive conduct related to that dominance. "After continued bipartisan conversations with attorneys general from around the country, today I am announcing that we have vastly expanded the list of states, districts, and territories investigating Facebook for potential antitrust violations," James said in a statement.
"Our investigation now has the support of 47 attorneys general from around the nation, who are all concerned that Facebook may have put consumer data at risk, reduced the quality of consumers' choices, and increased the price of advertising. As we continue our investigation, we will use every investigative tool at our disposal to determine whether Facebook's actions stifled competition and put users at risk." It comes as Facebook already faces a separate antitrust investigation launched by the Federal Trade Commission in July.
"Our investigation now has the support of 47 attorneys general from around the nation, who are all concerned that Facebook may have put consumer data at risk, reduced the quality of consumers' choices, and increased the price of advertising. As we continue our investigation, we will use every investigative tool at our disposal to determine whether Facebook's actions stifled competition and put users at risk." It comes as Facebook already faces a separate antitrust investigation launched by the Federal Trade Commission in July.
good (Score:1)
time to apply antitrust to tech again.
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That will not make a good hat.
why not (Score:1)
besides, all you need is lov.
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So they have a monopoly..on a free service...with countless literal alternatives including not using it. Makes sense.
The only possible slightly rational one would be for advertising, but the facts aren't on their side there either since there are countless advertising outlets online and off.
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Twitter is really the one I can think of.
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So they have a monopoly..on a free service...with countless literal alternatives including not using it. Makes sense.
Well, we have to investigate somebody... You know, what with Comcast and Verizon, et al being untouchable.
Remember, the goal is to restrict user broadcast to a smaller audience. With the Facebook/Twitter "monopoly" billions can see anybody's brain farts. To tell the truth, it looks like mass media has everything under control. They use the audience to spread their bullshit for them. It's chea
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Yeah, that's what's so silly. Cable companies and telcos/mobile are potentially real monopolies. They use limited resources like cables on govt land, regulated airwaves, etc.. and people have no choice.
Facebook? Pfft. Delete your account. Advertise on any of 100's of other different platforms. It's piddly little bullshit that has very little impact on 99.9% of the country.
it's free?!?? (Score:1)
how are they making money?!?! It's a miracle!!?!!
The product (humans) use it for "free"... the CUSTOMERS, PAY, to advertise to those human. It's so complicated I blame you for not figuring that out.
I don't care about your opinion... there's law on this matter that the tech industry has gotten a free pass on for 25 years... time for the free ride to be up. And if you want, you can change the law.
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What law? Antitrust law? It amuses me you think that is some objectively defined law. It's a popularity contest at this point, if the powers that be hate you they will go after you for antitrust.
Any reasonable definition of antitrust includes a physically limited resource, or one limited by government regulation. Hence oil, power, telephone lines on govt. land, water, etc... Those are real monopolies.
Fake, modern monopolies like Microsoft, Facebook, or Google are just products that people overwhelmingly cho
so glad I amuse you (Score:1)
I totally believe that you are amused by me and not just signaling a condescending attitude.
I'm certain you have read the Antitrust laws and based your comments on them, along with a close review of the Standard, AT&T and other antitrust actions.
I guess you are a conservative, b/c that's who thinks law is all subjective. Too bad it's objectively written down, and is the law.
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Govenment corruption has to hide itself better in the west, but it's there.
Translate TFA as "facebook hasn't paid enough 'donations' lately."
How has blowing politicians done in the long run, facebook? You're an asset only until you can be preyed on directly.
believe or not (Score:1)
but some people actually believe in Anti-Trust law, and looking how things were before it... it's obvious and objectively important according to my best interest.
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Yeah, people give in to their hatred and try to imagine some rationale behind this but it's really just "I hate Facebook so it's good the govt goes after them", they will make up mumbo jumbo about "monopolies" because, you know, everyone feels so bad for the poor advertisers clogging the fucking Internet and want to make sure we see more ads per ad-dollar. Won't someone think of the advertisers beholden to evil Facebook!!!
It's a pathetic fucking farce. I get it, nerds hate Facebook so they cheer on the govt
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Translate TFA as "facebook hasn't paid enough 'donations' lately."
That, and I'd also venture a guess politicians don't like Facebook because it's a wild card when it comes to spending money to sway public opinion. I've recently seen some ads for Buttigieg run on Facebook, and the comments section is almost entirely criticism. With traditional media, the peanut gallery's comments don't get put on pedestal next to your ad. There's also no amount of money you can spend to get people to stop sharing negative memes about you.
Of course, claiming the public has too much "free
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They are going to be looking at whether Facebook did anything anticompetitive so that they could generate more ad revenue. Since that is directly based on thier number / frequency of users,, things they did to discourage users moving to other platforms would be in scope, as would anything they did to harm a competitor's ability to attract new users.
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Oh come on, does anyone really believe this? It's about politics. Nerds around here hate Facebook so they cheer it on. Democrats think Facebook got Trump elected (hint: it didn't and the idea is fucking laughable) so they hate Facebook. Conservatives think the "libruhls" run Facebook and are censoring poor, beleaguered Conservative Voices.
This monopoly bullshit is just a smokescreen for people with power to attack other people with power, there's no reasonable rationale behind it and if you think this isn't
well, some people don't care about the law (Score:1)
... and that's you. At least Antitrust Law. Maybe there's other laws you "like".
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Well, often... (Score:1)
... being written down they are in black and white. However, not every case fits perfectly. You will laugh and laugh when the law is executed... b/c you think I believe innocent people should be punished by laws over which they should be prosecuted. You will laugh b/c there is interpretation and juries? Har har! I don't get it exactly.
Antitrust has been ignored in tech for almost 30 years. I want it to stop being ignored, or at least change the law. You want it to keep being ignored. So you will lau
Comment removed (Score:3)
I remember that... (Score:1)
they should have been broken up. However... it did stall them from their desire to own the internet. Also, if you don't like Antitrust, change the law, it's time to enforce the law again.
Re:Old memories. (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with the American Justice system. Is that it is expensive, and big companies with a lot of money can afford to fully utilize it.
You go to court and loose. You get a big fine. so you appeal, and appeal, until you get a judge more supportive of you. If the fine is big enough, you just appeal indefinitely, as the cost of continual legal action is still cheaper then the fine.
That said, such a big loss, does affect how the general public sees your company. Pre-Microsoft investigation the general public (with the exception of the Mac and Linux users) everyone Loved Microsoft. They made these new fancy computers with all the cool features we loved. IE 4 was so much faster than Netscape, Word and Excel had so many more new features over Word Perfect and Lotus 123 for DOS.
After the initial judgement Microsoft has had a much harder time expanding. As you can see with its general failure in the mobile market. The rise of people getting Mac's, iPods and iPhone then leading to Android devices. Also with people moving their PC upgrade times from every 3-4 years to every 6-12 years, as alternatives were available with mobile. And websites have taken the place of many of our Applications.
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The law is incredibly complex and it's often poorly written. It's so massive that it's impractical to expect any single judge to know most of it and the common law history tha
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A fair justice system, should have processes that will prevent "that idiot who sues people for random stuff" usually such a system would have the government suing him back for wasting the courts resources, or forced to pay back the victims legal fees (be it smaller fees in general)
The problem is a lot of people are being treated unjustly, however will not take legal actions because they don't have the resources to do so. Class Actions Suits may actually get justice done, however the payback for the people
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At the time it started they really weren't much more than Windows and Office. Neither of those market shares really changed much after. They were able to get into the console market and do quite well during and after the case, so it didn't hold them back there. Everything else was really a failure of such ma
Internet regulation NEEDED (Score:2)
Require 3rd party open free integration for ALL multi-service providers online.
Example, a chat service:
If it is on the web, then it's already accessible to browsers. The protocol to send chats must be published and freely accessible to 3rd parties so other websites can chat with it. Excempt small start ups for a short period of time.
A portal like Facebook, must make it so any 3rd party chat can be plugged in and selected by the users (without them as default.) This will be incredibly difficult to implement
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Too big too fast. (Score:3)
The problem with Facebook, is its fast growth. It went to a small social media site, that needed a College .edu email to a world wide phenomenon within a little over a decade. This has caused the company to grow faster then its initial design allowed.
If your service gets to a particular size, you need a whole new set of safeguards, and content monitoring. As external sources are pressing to get their views across. And paid services are collecting and often abusing such information. Beyond Facebooks ability to manage it.
Re:Too big too fast. (Score:4, Informative)
Not even a decade, only took about 5 years. Whats exceptional about it is that they weren't first to market, not even third. I would even say that the growth was organic too. Pretty amazing story IMHO too bad it's run by a villain.
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And the product is shit. Don't for get that.
[bold mine]
You characterize them that way but they must have been something the right way...
Remember too, that the following flopped!
FriendFeed, iTunes Ping, Google Wave, Google Buzz, Meerkat, Friendster, Yik Yak, Vine...and a few more.
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You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the "problem with Facebook". What it does now is what it always did and always wanted to do. It is not a problem of inadequate "safeguards" caused by growing too fast, it is a problem of bad intent.
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Except for the fact the scale of the intent failed.
I buy a used table saw at a Garage sale. The Garage Sale Owner intent was to make money by getting rid of stuff he doesn't use anymore. He sells me the product he may or may not warn me that this old table saw lacks any of the modern safety features, of a new one. I get the saw home and loose a finger. The fault is on me, because I bought the product from a private source, with the scale of selling only one saw.
Now if I go to the hardware store, and bu
Tom's younger cousin blossoming (Score:1)
Easy solution to this problem (Score:2)
It's not complicated ... (Score:2)
... has Facebook broken the law or not?
At this stage, it's an investigation.
No need to get all batshit cray cray.
Yet.