FTC files new antitrust complaint against Facebook
I can't believe how weak these cases have been - are these more of a posturing thing?<p>* These were all approved at the time. This is going to make for a crazy world if folks act on an approval and then they are reversed.<p>* The focus of a lot of these seems to be on harm to other (sometimes very scammy) businesses. The Apple case has this issue as well. Match group can't do non-cancelable auto-renewing billing in their own app store. Rando app can't get your email and other details but you can route via apple. Etc. Why not focus on consumer harm more - that was traditional focus. The complaint is Facebook doesn't make an easy api for others to scrape their platform - uh, hello cambridge analytic?<p>* These social network things seem somewhat fragile. Myspace came and went, Friendster was hot. Now I see a lot more folks on tiktok. Are kids still even active on facebook?<p>* Instagram wasn't that big when purchased, and many folks (including same people writing the articles now about monopolies) said that facebook wildly overpaid.<p><a href="https://twitter.com/rockspindeln/status/189416024058245121" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/rockspindeln/status/189416024058245121</a><p>What's crazy is there is so much straight pure scam crap on the internet the FTC does nothing about. I mean, stuff that is obvious consumer harm. In my case I tried to cancel a subscription 30 days in advance recently (nearly 1K per year). It turns out you have to cancel 90 days in advance but not more than 120 days in advance?? So now I'm on the hook for another 1K. That is just total trash behavior online. And instead of the click to sign up, I had to go through endless hoops. Talked to someone, then they wanted me to submit a case, I did that, then back and forth to "verify" me etc etc.<p>The FTC is crickets on just endless false advertising, misleading internet offers etc (stuff that's not even close to OK).