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FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

ftc.gov

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Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#151

Post by akarma »

Facebook has been preparing for this for years:

- cross-app communication between Messenger and Instagram

- Messenger API enabling business communication on Instagram

- ad management for Instagram and Facebook through a centralized platform

- WhatsApp business accounts linking to Facebook accounts

- Facebook shopping in-app in WhatsApp

These are all small and there are many more examples, but an overarching theme is to integrate FB's products as much as possible. It's not only to increase adoption and revenue, but also to make them appear inseparable.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#152

Post by fishtacos »

jb1991 wrote: post #119
fishtacos wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet they can do so very easily at the flip of a button, so to speak. The capability exists, and simply because potential competitors choose to not compete in the same space is what makes WhatsApp a monopoly? See Skype, for example - the largest market penetration for a period of time and practically no one uses them any more. They were video-centric, yet the user base is already there for an extension into a primaril…

And had they been able to, what do you think would’ve happened to Skype had it been acquired by Facebook back when it was the main game in town? I think that’s the point.

They would've had competition.

Whatsapp has other competitors currently. Telegram and Viber come readily to mind, and I am certain there are other services that I'm not aware of, the old fart that I am.

Whatsapp was incredibly popular in most of the underdeveloped world, where it became the de facto messaging app because of the low data requirements and ubiquitousness (and probable subsidies via the ISP provider). This was prior to FB buying them. Out of my group of contacts, the Telegram app notified me over the past year that roughly 2 dozen have signed up for it, e.g. That's another (albeit anecdotal) sign.

I understand the antagonism toward FB/Whatsapp/Instagram, given the consolidation of social networks within the purview of one entity, but not a single one of those services is a monopoly.

Could very well be I don't understand the intricacies of the law, and such consolidation is perhaps illegal for the betterment of society, but I'm not convinced that's the case still. Microsoft, for example, was accused of monopolistic behavior because they had enough power to pressure manufacturers to bundle IE with the OS. No such thing is happening in this situation. IANAL, but that's my simplistic take on it.

I stand to be corrected.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#153

Post by samatman »

gfodor wrote: post #45
cblconfederate wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

doubt it. oculus alone will fade to obscurity

Seems unlikely to me unless you think your children are going to be using computers with flat screens on walls like we do today.

I happen to think the problems with VR are rooted in the laws of physics, or at least human physiology, rather than the limitations of hardware.

Can you trick my eyes into focusing on infinity when the actual focus point is three cm away? Maybe?

Can you trick my inner ear into accepting the virtual reality? Ok, how?

AR is a different story, but Oculus would be starting from zero on an AR play, the only company with a genuine head start is Apple.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#154

Post by vosper »

gamblor956 wrote: post #20
mmastrac wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Splitting those two properties off would be fantastic. I know it's a pipe dream, but an independent Oculus would make me so happy. I suspect this is impossible due to the early nature of the VR market. Maybe just an FTC requirement _not_ to require a FB login?

Unfortunately, after skimming through the PDF of the complaint ( https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/1910134fbco... ), it appears the FTC is not seeking that remedy. It appears VR is still too small of a market for them to care about.

Also, Facebook doesn't have a monopoly on VR - there are several competitors in the market, like HTC and Valve.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#155

Post by ghufran_syed »

I feel like instead of pushing for the companies to separate, congress should pass laws mandating [adversarial interoperability](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interopera...). Then the data (including the social graph) really would belong to the users, and facebook would have to compete with multiple other “social network clients” that would rapidly emerge. Facebook would lose some monopoly profits, but in the long-run they might even make more money - they have a lot of very smart practical engineers (at least based on seeing their approach to writing libraries e.g. react vs angular, pytorch vs tensorflow etc.) So if forced to compete, I think they would do just fine, particularly because I believe that the ecosystem would develop faster in the presence of real, and actually grow the market beyond what it would otherwise be.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#156

Post by jcfrei »

gamblor956 wrote: post #20
mmastrac wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Splitting those two properties off would be fantastic. I know it's a pipe dream, but an independent Oculus would make me so happy. I suspect this is impossible due to the early nature of the VR market. Maybe just an FTC requirement _not_ to require a FB login?

Unfortunately, after skimming through the PDF of the complaint ( https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/1910134fbco... ), it appears the FTC is not seeking that remedy. It appears VR is still too small of a market for them to care about.

Seems a bit short-sighted because if Oculus becomes the dominant VR platform that Facebook envisions it to be then it's going to dwarf instagram in terms of economic importance (for advertisers and users) over the long term.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#157

Post by spunker540 »

dane-pgp wrote: post #122
apozem wrote: post #62

> The complaint also alleges that Facebook, over many years, has imposed anticompetitive conditions on third-party software developers’ access to valuable interconnections to its platform, such as the application programming interfaces (“APIs”) that allow the developers’ apps to interface with Facebook. In particular, Facebook allegedly has made key APIs available to third-party applications only on the condition tha…

> On one hand, forcing Facebook to open up its social graph would have serious privacy implications. There shouldn't be much additional privacy concern with a Facebook user saying "I trust user Alice and service example.com, so please send all my posts to alice@example.com using ActivityPub." Similarly, Alice should be able to tell example.com that she trusts the Facebook user Bob with ID 123456789, so that example.c…

They tried this and had to stop after “I trust Cambridge Analytica, so please send my data there”...

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#158

Post by shawnMer »

gazelleeatslion wrote: post #71

This is so misdirected... We need transparency, not this. How is there not some sort of regulation to allow me to opt-out or configure these algorithms that target me for ads of curated content? It's my f*cking data!

I'm not trying to troll but the reaction to "It's my f*cking data!" should be to seriously look into projects like Urbit. Where you do in fact own and control your own data.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#159

Post by fishtacos »

jsinai wrote: post #148
fishtacos wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the FTC.gov[1]: "The antitrust laws prohibit conduct by a single firm that unreasonably restrains competition by creating or maintaining monopoly power. Most Section 2 claims involve the conduct of a firm with a leading market position, although Section 2 of the Sherman Act also bans attempts to monopolize and conspiracies to monopolize. As a first step, courts ask if the firm has "monopoly power" in any market.…

The lawsuit is about Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram effectively roping in users from other platforms into their advertising ecosystem. The monetisation of your data in exchange for adverts can be seen as the cost of the platforms. By aggressively increasing advertising on Instagram and attempting to take steps to monetize WhatsApp, Facebook are raising prices. As far as I understand the question is…

"The lawsuit is about Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram effectively roping in users from other platforms into their advertising ecosystem"

I don't use Instagram and have used Whatsapp prior to FB acquiring it. There has been no "roping in" of any sort that I have noticed, and while my experience is clearly anecdotal, there doesn't seem to be anything to link to that that I've observed. Perhaps I'm naive, but it would be good to see something concrete in this regard.

"The monetisation of your data in exchange for adverts can be seen as the cost of the platforms. By aggressively increasing advertising on Instagram and attempting to take steps to monetize WhatsApp, Facebook are raising prices. As far as I understand the question is whether it is their abuse of monopoly power that allows them to do this."

I guess I would call that profit-making, not "aggressive monetization". The alternatives exist and they are all easily accessible. Put yourself in their shoes - would you run a non-profitable enterprise? At what cost? Let's not lose touch with the fact that this is still a capitalistic economy.

Re: FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization

#160

Post by belval »

hans1729 wrote: post #15

Lets hope they push through with it and follow up with Google. Its about time - its ridiculous how incredibly powerful these institutions have become. Question: is there an argument not to split up these gigantic corporations?

While they crush local competition, they also crush it in other countries. Google and Facebook/Whatsapp own a sizeable chunk of Internet interactions in just about every country except China, which in turns means more revenue which can be used to pay these insane Silicon Valley salaries to their workforce.

While I don't like these monopolistic practices, they have given the US a tremendous amount of power over communications abroad.

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