Facebook Tumbles as FTC Mulls an Injunction Is the Companys Dissolution on the Cards?

As per an internal source of the Journal, the FTC may invoke the interoperability rules as a basis for an injunction and to highlight the potential detrimental impact of Facebooks integration push on the ability of other industry players to compete.

Attorney General William Barr has voiced his concerns that this step will provide a safe haven to criminals and make it harder for law enforcement agencies to detect online crimes such as instances of child exploitation.Facebook, for it part, has asserted that its encryption of chats and messages is a necessary component of its targeted efforts for enhancing user privacy.

This development follows growing anger in Washington over the lack of comprehensive scrutiny at the time Facebook purchased WhatsApp and Instagram. In a Twitter post earlier this year, Democratic Representative Ro Khanna wrote: This is why there should have been far more scrutiny during Facebooks acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp which now clearly seem like horizontal mergers that should have triggered antitrust scrutiny.

Interestingly, in addition to an ongoing probe by the FTC, Facebook is also facing a separate investigation by the Justice Department as well as another antitrust probe from a coalition of 47 state attorneys general.

Original article