Facebook Tumbles After FTC Opens Competition Probe…(3 Attacks…)
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Mon, 06/03/2019
Following the first report about the Trump Administration’s looming war with Silicon Valley – a late Friday report from WSJ about the DoJ opening an anti-trust probe into Google – WSJ’s latest follow up on Monday is a report that the FTC is preparing to open a similar investigation into Facebook.
The news sent Facebook shares down 9% in midday trade, wiping $6 billion off CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth in minutes.
Per WSJ, the fact that the FTC – which is already preparing to levy a massive fine against Facebook for data privacy violations – has secured jurisdiction over the anti-trust probe suggests that it is considering even more rigorous scrutiny.
Earlier, the Washington Post published more details about the incipient anti-trust push when it revealed that the FTC also has jurisdiction over an anti-trust probe into Amazon, as the FTC and DoJ divide up the anti-trust push not on a company by company, but on an issue-by-issue, basis, as WSJ explained.
Jurisdictional agreements between the FTC and Justice Department don’t assign one agency the right to oversee one company for all purposes. Instead, the two antitrust agencies clear each other to work on specific issues. Both the FTC and Justice Department, for example, in the past have conducted oversight of issues related to Google and Amazon.
The NYT also published new details about the DOJ’s probe into Google, which will reportedly focus on its advertising and search businesses. If the intraday drop holds, it will be the biggest decline in FB shares since December.
The Rest…HERE
