The FTC’s antitrust complaint against Facebook has been dismissed — for now
The antitrust push targeting Facebook hit a significant roadblock on Monday when a federal court dismissed antitrust lawsuits that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 48 states had filed against the tech giant.
The dismissal is a major win for Facebook, which — along with Amazon, Apple, and Google — has been facing increasing scrutiny about whether it’s engaging in monopolistic behavior to stifle its competition. It’s also a major setback for the growing bipartisan political movement in the US to rein in Big Tech’s power. And it signals that the path forward for antitrust enforcement against these companies may require lawmakers to revisit existing US antitrust law, which had its last major overhaul in the early 1900’s — well before the internet age.
Matt Stoller has analysis here: https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/facebook-hits-1-trillion-in-market
Interpretation is complicated. My read is that the judge may be doing the DoJ a favour, effectively saying "you've got a good foundation but you're making a poor case, here's a one-month extension to improve your argument". Though there's also the matter that the judge appears to be applying more a Borkian than a Khanian interpretation of antitrust and monopoly, with Bork's focus on "consumer welfare" being the standard.
This is the first big move under Lina Khan's tenure as FTC chairwoman, though this case isn't directly an FTC action (it's a DoJ case, though DoJ and FTC would presumably work together in such matters).
#facebook #antitrust #monopoly #ftc #lawsuits #LinaKhan #doj #ftc #courts #MattStoller
