Antitrust
Facebook and other tech giants have quite the record when it comes to legal troubles, whether if it’s between one another like Apple and Epic Games, or with the courts of the United States government pushing them on antitrust, seeing a headline about either is no surprise. One of the biggest lawsuits going on under this umbrella of suits is with Facebook and involves antitrust laws. The lawsuit asks the question: is Facebook behaving in a manner that shows antitrust practices or not? This mainly comes because of Facebook squeezing competitors out of the social media market through acquisitions and strong-arming.
Recently, this case was thrown out by a judge, giving Facebook a sigh of relief. You might be wondering, why in the world would such a case be thrown out? After all, wasn’t the evidence solid? Well according to NYU Law School professor Eleanor Fox, it is difficult to prove that any of the Big Tech firms have monopoly power. That includes Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), Apple (AAPL), or even Facebook (FB) in this matter. The judge dismissed the case on the grounds that the government had waited too long and that the claim made by the Federal Trade Commission failed to support the fundamental claim that Facebook holds monopoly power over the market for social networking. Regardless, advocates who want to be stricter on these big tech companies have said that the battle is nowhere near over and more suits are not out of the question. What do you think about the battle between government and tech companies? And do you support one side or the other?
I am not a financial advisor and my comments should never be taken as financial advice. Investments come with risk, so always do your research and analysis beforehand.