Facebook is asking a federal judge to reject historic antitrust lawsuits against the company, arguing that its “innovative free products add value” to consumers and that there is no evidence that it has behaved in an anti-competitive manner or broken the law.
The Federal Trade Commission and almost all states in the country filed two lawsuits in December, arguing that Facebook abused its market power by acquiring rival companies, mainly WhatsApp and Instagram, thus preventing competitors from presenting an alternative more concerned with the consumer privacy.
“Facebook’s actions to consolidate and maintain its monopoly deny consumers the benefits of competition,” said FTC Bureau of Competition director Ian Conner at the time. “Our goal is to reverse Facebook’s anti-competitive conduct and restore competition so that innovation and free competition can thrive.”
“No governmental process like this has been filed in the 130-year history of the Sherman Act,” says Facebook in its motion to reject the FTC process. As the mergers have already been approved, Facebook’s legal argument continues, they should now be allowed to remain intact because they cannot be breaking the law.
Specifically, however, Facebook claims that the FTC has failed to build a case because it does not claim a “plausible relevant market” that Facebook could be monopolizing. Although the FTC defines the segment as a “personal social network”, Facebook instead argues that it is primarily a announcement business and that the advertising market is “tirelessly competitive”.
Do you have both?
Facebook dismisses claims that its acquisitions of a “small photo sharing service” (Instagram, $ 1 billion, 2012) or “a messaging-only service” (WhatsApp, $ 16 billion, 2014) could have been anticompetitive because none of the companies agreed with Facebook. to-toe, and the FTC allowed both transactions to proceed at the moment.
Facebook also dismisses the evidence found during a Congressional investigation showing that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg explicitly determined that the acquisition of Instagram could help the company neutralize a nascent competitor.
“In the absence of facts to establish illegal conduct or harm to consumers, the FTC tries to reinforce its allegations with a collection of selectively cited internal emails and messages from Facebook executives, which are offered to show that Facebook was concerned about threats competitive prices for Instagram and WhatsApp, “writes Facebook. “The FTC combines such catchphrases with pertinent facts … but conclusive rhetoric and selective quotes reflecting Facebook’s intense focus on dealing with all kinds of competitive threats are all that the FTC has.”
Therefore, the suit concludes, the FTC has not only failed to present the case, but also has no authority to uphold the case, because Facebook is not “violating or about to violate” the antitrust law.
The states also have no legitimacy, Facebook argues in its motion (PDF) for the case to be closed, as the attorney generals have filed lawsuits on behalf of their citizens. In addition, states have waited too long to act and “Facebook would be unfairly harmed if the case were allowed to proceed,” argues Facebook.