- Responding to a U.S. government effort to split Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) from Instagram and WhatsApp, the company's lawyers say such a move would be a "complete non-starter" in a 14-page document released ahead of a report from the House Antitrust Subcommittee expected this month.
- According to the document, it would be almost impossible for Facebook to unwind the acquisitions, Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014, and would force it to spend "billions" of dollars maintaining separate systems, weakening security and harming user experiences.
- The government's case, if pursued, would probably focus on arguments that the company's acquisitions were aimed at reducing competition, a question that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) did not consider (?) according to Columbia University law professor Tim Wu. He adds that Facebook's claim that a potential breakup would be too hard would be unlikely to carry much legal weight.
- This summer, the subcommittee published emails from Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg citing the difficulty competing against Instagram as a rationale for a takeover. In a later message, he acknowledged that the company's aim would be to "neutralize a competitor," although he backtracked in a subsequent email.
- The FTC is reportedly planning to file a complaint against the company by year-end, part of a broader wave of investigations into fellow tech behemoths Apple, Amazon and Google.