Snap! FTC amended lawsuit to break up Facebook - green light from the court! Congrats to FTC.
Rather than spend time dunking on FB's friendlies who suggested it had failed, I hope you will ignore their next round of talking points since the last ones were so damn wrong. /1
First, they told you the FTC failed to even define a market - their go-to line. This was entirely false, the court said they had failed to provide metrics to back it up which they added in spades to the amended complaint which had the same core theory as the Court notes. /2
The really really obviously on Facebook's payroll and influence list said things like the FTC had already "approved" the Instagram and WhatsApp deals which were sort of the rookie-league arguments and false. But again, the Judge clarified why those points were irrelevant. /3
back to actual arguments of the case, the Court had already accepted the market definition and then now tips the hat to the use of three metrics as backup. Anyone who has actually run a digital biz knows why you must look at multiple metrics holistically. So does the Judge. /4
In terms of Facebook's argument that buying Instagram and WhatsApp wasn't anticompetitive and bad for consumers, the Court throws in the compelling point of how Facebook pulled back its own investment in its own product after the deal. Point taken. /5
And love seeing the Court agree with Facebook that consumer harm also matters and that can't be proven on price (since facebook is free) but then agreeing the allegations are solid. DISCOVERY ON THIS AREA IS GOING TO BE A GOLD MINE as we all know, Facebook is a cesspool. /6
I mean one more point here on consumers. The allegation is market power allowed FB to lower its service quality for consumers. Does anyone doubt this? Do we really believe Facebook wouldn't have better addressed its problems of the past few years if it had more competition? /7
So when Facebook attempts to argue FTC re-arranged chairs on Titanic or FB's paid lobby group (hi @adamkovac) points out meaningless language in the decision (yes, Count II remains in the complaint), please return to my first tweet as they also said it should be thrown out. /8
And my threaded comments on the original amended complaint.
also, I should have pointed out the Court also threw out Facebook's weak sauce argument against the Chair's ability to file the case (google and amazon have tried similar arguments in other matters).
As background, here was my thread on the amended FTC case filed in August.
Woah.
Google is effectively trying to buy out the United States by tendering a cashier's check for the claimed max damages from screwing industry with adtech market power abuses. US DOJ's adtech antitrust trial seeking to break them up is months away. 1/4
And then with google's payment, they're trying to get it switched from jury to bench trial. The money is an after thought, what they clearly don't want is a jury of Americans reviewing damning evidence (see Bernanke) which may be harder to appeal leading to structural remedy. 2/4
lol, G. The lawsuit is smart for jury as U.S. explained Google's alleged abuse so Americans understand it by comparing G's market power on all sides to wall street. Hell, Google's own executive made this analogy "if Goldman or Citibank owned the NYSE."
A jury will get this. 3/4
Bam, clock starts. Facebook just filed its reply brief seeking cert from SCOTUS to reverse its early defeat to dismiss a Cambridge Analytica case. This comes 6+ years after Facebook began laundering press using exhaustion and complexity to whitewash facts of the scandal. /1
But let's start with preposterous argument from Facebook's amici allies as it's also Facebook's core argument to SCOTUS. Facebook argues the scandal was already widely known in 2015. So no reason to disclose in its SEC risk factors in 2016 or 2017 (when it was covering it up!) /2
Let's turn to the opposition which has really pinned down the facts over time correcting press mistakes. They call Facebook out directly on their bad argument. One that would require belief that the stock dropped for other reasons in 2018 when it finally became widely known. /3
Department of Justice has now posted its hundreds of great slides from closing arguments. I’ll share 13 slides that tell story imho captured by this list.
First, if search defaults don’t matter, why pay approx $30B, 40% of revenue to maintain them? 1/13
DOJ cleverly took this sentence from the DC circuit opinion in U.S. vs Microsoft and replaced it with Google’s search defaults story in red. “Fits like a glove” as they said to Court on Friday. Hard to argue. 2/13
The story on importance of Google’s data harvesting to monopoly maintenance was crystal clear so let’s move on to how DOJ alleges Google was able to use its market power to impact ad prices which drive much of their revenues. 3/13
There is a report going around Apple is going to facilitate blocking of ads in Safari - it deserves your attention. Meanwhile, I want to connect dots w/ a number of redactions lifted (yellow) late last night in the post-trial docs of US v Google - closing arguments are tmw. /1
It's critical to understand the importance of Safari to their Google deal under microscope. It's reasonable to say Safari delivers nearly 20% of Apple's Income from Ops almost entirely subsidized by Google. Without Safari, there is no Google deal. /2
As the expert witness in the trial pointed out, there isn't a rational explanation for a 40% revenue share on traffic that Google's proxies argue would happen without Apple. But hey, maybe that cash also pays for special influence into Safari's roadmap, too? /3
!!!!! just unsealed, and higher than prior news reports. /1
we learned last Fall in a different G lawsuit (NdCal) during widely reported testimony the number 36% as the share Google paid Apple to be locked in as default search across Apple's surfaces.
But now this was just unsealed from the two key contracts (here is 2014 which even then was 37.5%) /2
Whoa. Facebook had a secret "Project Ghostbusters" (get it?) which allegedly was to decrypt "man-in-the-middle" style Snapchat traffic to copy it. Yellow highlight indicates redactions just lifted in nine unsealed plaintiffs briefs in private antitrust lawsuit. Wild stuff. /1
A lot of new stuff. There was lots of reporting (including Apple threats to boot Facebook) at the time on Facebook's software and Onavo acquisition allowing it to "spy" on competitive apps but I recall the decryption was written as a hypothetical. CEO email kickstarting it. /2
You can read the press back in Jan 2019 spoon fed by Facebook PR to friendlies with no mentions of decrypting SSL then compare to this internal email below sent to Facebook's most senior executives - "currently includes SSL decryption"... /3