Facebook ‘bought & buried’ rivals because it lacks ‘talent’ to compete fairly, FTC claims in revived antitrust suit

The FTC filed the complaint on Thursday, accusing Facebook of underhanded and monopolistic business practices while calling for the company to be broken up to “restore competition” and “remedy the harm” caused by its “anticompetitive conduct.”

“Facebook lacked the business acumen and technical talent to survive the transition to mobile. After failing to compete with new innovators, Facebook illegally bought or buried them when their popularity became an existential threat,” said Holly Vedova, acting director for the FTC’s Bureau of Competition.

This conduct is no less anticompetitive than if Facebook had bribed emerging app competitors not to compete. The antitrust laws were enacted to prevent precisely this type of illegal activity by monopolists.