The amended complaint which focused on Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram comes after a judge threw out two antitrust cases against the company in June. The United States Federal Trade Commission on August 19 filed an amended complaint against Facebook in the agency’s ongoing federal antitrust case against the company. The complaint alleges that Facebook resorted to a "buy-or-bury" scheme to maintain its services' dominance. It unlawfully acquired innovative competitors with popular mobile features that succeeded where Facebook’s own offerings "fell flat or fell apart," the FTC said. Facebook lured app developers to the platform, surveilled them for signs of success, and then "buried" them when they became competitive threats, the complaint alleges. “This conduct is no less anticompetitive than if Facebook had bribed emerging app competitors not to compete,” said Holly Vedova, the FTC Bureau of Competition's Acting Director. “The antitrust laws were enacted to prevent precisely this type of illegal activity by monopolists. Facebook’s actions have suppressed innovation and product quality improvements. And they have degraded the social network experience, subjecting users to lower levels of privacy and data protections and more intrusive ads. The FTC’s action today seeks to put an end to this illegal activity and restore competition for the benefit of Americans and honest businesses alike.” The FTC's complaint against Facebook seeks its divestment in Instagram and WhatsApp; the former is how the company was able to stay relevant after social media went mobile, and the latter is arguably the largest messaging app in the…
