This is historical revisionism. Antitrust laws exist to protect consumers and promote innovation, not to punish successful companies. Instagram and WhatsApp became the incredible products they are today because Facebook invested billions of dollars, and years of innovation, knowledge, and expertise to develop new features and better experiences for the millions of people who enjoy those products. The most important fact in this case, which the Federal Trade Commission fails to mention in its 53-page complaint, is that it validated these acquisitions years ago. The government now wants a re-evaluation, sending the alarming signal to American businesses that no sale is ever final. People and small businesses don’t choose to use Facebook’s free advertising and services because they have to, but because our apps and services offer the most value. We will vigorously defend people’s ability to continue to make that choice.” – Jennifer Newstead, Vice President and General Counsel, Facebook
Original note
The United States will file an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook. The announcement was made by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who claims that Mark Zuckerberg's company used its power to dominate and harm small Azerbaijan WhatsApp Number List companies like Instagram and WhatsApp, thereby eliminating the danger they posed to its business model. According to the information presented, 47 other attorneys general (state and regional) are joining the lawsuit.
Specifically, the lawsuit focuses on one of the issues raised during this year's antitrust hearing: the $1 billion acquisition of Instagram in 2011. The doubts are on two fronts. First, the strategy under which the purchase was approved is being verified. But there are also questions about whether Facebook used its position to delay the growth of these companies before acquiring them.
This is not the only lawsuit in the works. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will also file another lawsuit on similar issues in the afternoon. The biggest difference is that it will not only focus on the purchase of Instagram, but also that of WhatsApp. The entity's final request is clear: to ask the court to reverse the acquisition and separate both apps into different companies.
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The plaintiffs appear to have a strong case, based on WhatsApp Number Database an extensive antitrust investigation. In July 2020, a series of exchanges between Zuckerberg and David Ebersman, then Facebook's financial adviser, were revealed before the House of Representatives. The tone of the exchanges indicated that the CEO of the social network saw the acquisition of Instagram as a necessary step to neutralize potential competition, while at the same time improving Facebook's catalog of services.
“One way to look at this is that what we’re really buying is time. Even if new competitors emerge, buying Instagram, Path, Foursquare, etc. now will give us a year or more to integrate their dynamics before anyone can come close to their scale again. Within that time, if we incorporate the social mechanics they were using, those new products won’t get much traction since we’ll already have their mechanics implemented at scale,” Zuckerberg wrote in his emails.
But that's not all. The antitrust suit also seeks to investigate whether, from the perspective of the acquisition, services were also worsened. Not in terms of quality, but in terms of the treatment of consumers. Here, the case would establish that from a privacy and data management point of view, Facebook has been responsible for turning both social networks into a platform to use their users' information against the competition. Of course, the creators of WhatsApp and Instagram seem to agree with these accusations, considering that both have left Facebook.