Facebook Sued Again Over Anticompetitive Conduct Allegations

Facebook Sued Again

A filing at the US District Court for the Northern District of California notes that the four-company plaintiffs have sought class-action status and unspecified damages. The lawsuit adds to the company's woes of antitrust violations by regulators around the world and multiple investigations.

"Facebook faced an existential threat from mobile apps, and while it could have responded by competing on the merits, it instead chose to use its might to intentionally eliminate its competition," said Yavar Bathaee, a partner at law firm Pierce Bainbridge and co-lead counsel in the case said to Reuters.

Going into the details, the filed lawsuit is an escalation of Facebook's ongoing battles with small app developers, who had built companies based on the access to user data. Back in 2012, Facebook terminated access for some of the apps. However, preferentially, Facebook is still allowing access for other app developers.

Take for instance the Six4Three app. Thousands of pages of damaging internal emails have surfaced online from the lawsuit filed by Six4Three, the developer of a now-shuttered photo app. Facebook, on the other hand, described the lawsuit by Six4Three as baseless. Facebook did not immediately respond to Reuters for comment on the latest lawsuit.

Facebook Faces Backlash From House Speaker

In other news, the US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in her weekly press briefing that the social media company of "schmoozing" the Trump administration out of tougher regulation. She called the company "very irresponsible" and that Facebook's behavior is "shameful".

Pelosi's remarks were a response to the question if Facebook and its CEO Zuckerberg had too much power. The Speaker further continued saying that Facebook's business model is strictly to make money. "They don't care about the impact on children. They don't care about the impact on truth," she said.

In recent terms, a lot of regulators, lawmakers, have begun investigations on tech companies including Amazon, Google, Facebook, and others. Laws like the GDPR in the European Union, personal data protection bill in India, and more are helping to curb the misuse of data and uphold the privacy of the users.

However, the question remains if these laws are enough to regulate the growing influence of tech companies. Facebook has not responded to Pelosi.