Back in August we posted "Facebook Antitrust: Restraint of Trade (FB)" which referenced. a drum yours truly has been beating for a couple years
We've mentioned a few times that Google and in particular Facebook are susceptible to old-school antitrust analysis because of their use of the John D. Rockefeller "Buy 'em, Copy 'em, or Crush 'em" approach to competition:That post had an infographic showing 72 of Facebook's acquisitions.
"FTC probes Facebook's acquisition practices - WSJ" (FB)which links back to some earlier posts, see (waaay) below.
For the moment this link is a placeholder but I'm pretty sure we'll be refering back to it.
Here's the latest from Gizmodo:
The restraint of trade line of attack is much simpler than some of the approaches being floated to rein in the platforms. Here are some related posts:The Federal Trade Commission is considering asking the courts to put a halt to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s plan to merge the technical backends of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram on antitrust grounds, the Wall Street Journal reports.The plan in question was touted by Zuckerberg and crew as a way to increase the ease of interactions across services and increase security by implementing end-to-end encryption, but it also conveniently comes at a time when pressure is growing on federal antitrust authorities to do something about the social media giant’s dominance of multiple tech markets. Merging the three services could give Facebook an opening to argue that they are now so interdependent it would be impossible, or at least unduly difficult, to break them up into separate companies.The FTC and the Department of Justice are already investigating Facebook as part of a broader federal review of whether huge firms like it, Google, Amazon, and Apple act in an anticompetitive manner. Earlier this year it slapped the company with a five billion fine for prior violations of user privacy, a move opposed by the two Democratic commissioners on the FTC board as grossly inadequate. The newer investigation could hurt Facebook much harder, with talk of examining acquisitions like Instagram and WhatsApp—but only if the FTC is willing to take a harder swing at the company this time around....MORE
July 23
U.S. DOJ Antitrust Division "Reviewing the Practices of Market-Leading Online Platforms" ( FB; GOOG; AMZN; AAPL)
The symbols in the headline are in rank order of probable exposure to old-school antitrust sanctions. Twitter if it were included would appear in the middle.
The symbols in the headline are in rank order of probable exposure to old-school antitrust sanctions. Twitter if it were included would appear in the middle.
Facebook
and Google have an especially egregious pattern of acquiring, crushing
or copying nascent competition, the type of behavior most amenable to
classical antitrust analysis. See:
- Have A Start-Up? DON'T Step Into Google and Facebook’s “Kill Zone”: (FB; GOOG)
- "Facebook’s willingness to copy rivals’ apps seen as hurting innovation" (FB).
- Chicago Booth: “Google Is as Close to a Natural Monopoly as the Bell System Was in 1956″ (GOOG, FB)
- "The DOJ’s antitrust chief just telegraphed exactly how it could go after Google, Apple and other big tech companies" (GOOG; FB; TWTR; AMZN)
- "...How Facebook Squashes Competition From Startups" (FB, AMZN, AAPL, GOOG)
Wikipedia lists 231 "mergers and acquisitions", both up to and including FitBit, announced November 1.
And here's some of the concern circling around Mountain View via CNBC, August 19:
Google’s acquisitions are in the spotlight 15 years after it went public
