Pressure to Sell Instagram and WhatsApp
[Asia Economy New York=Correspondent Baek Jong-min] Following Google, Facebook has also become embroiled in an antitrust lawsuit filed by the U.S. government.
On the 9th (local time), according to U.S. media, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and attorneys general from 48 states filed two lawsuits against Facebook.
These lawsuits claim that Facebook's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp could limit competition and include provisions that could order the divestiture of the two apps.
The FTC argued in the complaint that Facebook secured a monopolistic market position by winning the competition against MySpace and acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp.
It is alleged that Facebook avoided competition by acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp after recognizing them as threatening rivals.
The FTC highlighted a 2008 email from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in which he mentioned that "it is better to buy than to compete."
Following the news of the lawsuit filing, Facebook's stock price plunged by as much as 4% during the day compared to the previous day but later recovered a significant portion of the loss.
Earlier, the U.S. Department of Justice also filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google, the world's largest search engine company, alleging that Google restricted competition by pre-installing its search app on smartphones and other devices.
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