a threat. The lawsuit — which includes 46 states,
Guam and the District of Columbia — accuses
Facebook of anti-competitive conduct and using
its market dominance to harvest consumer data
and reap a fortune in advertising revenues.
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, who
was on the executive committee of attorneys
general conducting the investigation, said
the litigation has the potential to alter the
communications landscape the way the breakup
of AT&T’s local phone service monopoly in the
early 1980s did.
“Our hope is to restructure the social networking
marketplace in the United States, and right
now there’s one player,” Stein told reporters.
James said the coalition worked collaboratively
with the FTC but noted the attorneys general
conducted their investigation separately.
Antitrust expert Rebecca Allensworth, a law
professor at Vanderbilt University, said it is “hard
to win any antitrust lawsuit and this one is not
any different.” But as far as antitrust cases go, she
added, the government has a strong one.
The Justice Department’s suit against Google,
announced just two weeks before Election Day,
brought accusations of political motivation from
some quarters. It was filed by a cabinet agency
headed by an attorney general seen as a close
ally of President Donald Trump, who has often
publicly criticized Google.
The FTC, by contrast, is an independent regulatory
agency whose five commissioners currently
include three Republicans and two Democrats.
President-elect Joe Biden has said the breakup of
Big Tech giants should be seriously considered.Image: Jeff Chiu