New York Attorney General launches an antitrust investigation into Facebook

Facebook is under a microscope again and this time New York’s Attorney General has filed an antitrust case against the company. The antitrust case is just another in a long line of cases due to government oversight. Facebook is definitely not the first company to get slapped with an antitrust case. Earlier today, Google confirmed that it’s under antitrust investigation.

Even the largest social media platform in the world must follow the law and respect consumers. I am proud to be leading a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general in investigating whether Facebook has stifled competition and put users at risk. We will use every investigative tool at our disposal to determine whether Facebook’s actions may have endangered consumer data, reduced the quality of consumers’ choices, or increased the price of advertising.

–  New York Attorney General Letitia James

The New York Attorney will be coordinating the investigation with attorneys general from Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and the District of Columbia. Facebook has already received a penalty of $5 billion for their involvement in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Earlier this month, Washington Post reported that State Attorneys in partnership with the Depart of Justice are working on launching probes into several tech companies.

While it’s great that the Justice Department is taking an interest in preventing malpractices by tech companies, they have never managed to do enough damage to prevent it from happening. Just three days ago, FTC announced that Google will be paying $170 million in fines for illegally collecting personal information from children. While $170 million might sound a lot but compared to Google’s $32.5 billion ad revenue last year, it’s just a drop in the ocean.

Source New York Attorney’s Office; Via Gizmodo