The federal government and 48 state attorneys general are suing Facebook, accusing the social media giant of using illegal tactics to maintain its dominance.
The states’ lawsuit, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, alleges that Facebook squashed potential rivals by buying up smaller competitors and closing off its platform to developers of apps it perceived as a threat. In the process, it weakened privacy protections for users of its platform, she said.
“For nearly a decade, Facebook used its dominance and monopoly power to crush smaller rivals, at the expense of users,” James said in a press conference on Wednesday. “No company should have this much unchecked power over our personal information and our social interactions.”
The suit cites Facebook’s 2012 purchase of Instagram for $1 billion and a $19 billion deal for WhatsApp in 2014 as examples of its efforts to eliminate competitors. Those acquisitions let Facebook solidify its social media dominance while depriving users of privacy-focused alternatives, James said.
The Federal Trade Commission filed a parallel lawsuit Wednesday. Both suits are asking the courts to force Facebook to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp, as well as to seek government approval for future mergers.
Facebook & Twitter CEOs testify before Senate…
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Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but noted on Twitter that the FTC previously cleared the Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions.
“Years after the FTC cleared our acquisitions, the government now wants a do-over with no regard for the impact that precedent would have on the broader business community or the people who choose our products every day,” Facebook tweeted.
The world’s dominant social network, Facebook counts 2.7 billion users and has a market value approaching $800 billion.
This is a developing story.