#Zuckerberg, testifying in an FTC #antitrust trial, claims that #META is not a social networking #monopoly. The FTC wants his company to sell WhatApp and Instagram. This is reporting from the 1st day of trial, so no predictions on outcome. https://www.businessinsider.com/ftc-meta-trial-mark-zuckerberg-antitrust-2025-4

In an unprecedented move, the Japan Fair Trade Commission on Tuesday issued a cease-and-desist order against Google for violating the country's anti-monopoly law by forcing manufacturers to preinstall the company’s apps on their #Android #smartphones.

> This is the first time that #Japan has issued such an order against any of the major U.S. technology companies referred to collectively as GAFAM — Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2025/04/15/companies/google-anti-monopoly-law/ #Google #Alphabet #monopoly

U.S. Argues Meta Built a #SocialMedia #Monopoly

The Federal Trade Commission opened its first #antitrust trial under the #Trump administration by arguing that Meta’s purchases of #Instagram and #WhatsApp deprived consumers of other social networking options.
#ftc #privacy #meta

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/technology/meta-antitrust-trial-ftc.html

U.S. Prepares to Challenge Meta’s Social Media Dominance

Did Meta break the law to stay dominant by acquiring the start-ups that stood in its way?

#FTC #DOJ #socialmedia #meta #facebook #instagram #whatsapp #antitrust #monopoly #technology #tech

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/technology/meta-ftc-trial-whatsapp-instagram.html

Meta heads to court over alleged illegal monopoly that could force it to sell Instagram, Whatsapp
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission claims that by acquiring Whatsapp and Instagram, the Facebook parent company aimed to eliminate competitors who could threaten Facebook's status as the go-to social media platform.
#lawsuit #monopoly #socialmedia #News #Business
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/meta-court-monopoly-1.7509525?cmp=rss

this shit is a travesty
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/14/nx-s1-5358436/meta-ftc-antitrust-trial-opening-arguments

USA #monopoly #laws are completely outdated thanks to the Republican and Democratic parties #collusion in NOT regulating all the #techbros industries that were taking the place of the #surveillance state they didn’t want to fund directly with the federal budget. which explains the existence of InQTel.

the FTC going after Facebook/Meta and the Iguanazi without acknowledging he only exists thanks the above, IS the problem.

A long-awaited trial between Meta and the Federal Trade Commission kicked off this morning. Follow @theverge for updates. #Meta #Instagram #Monopoly #FTC https://flip.it/PmEg9j

Meta heads to court over alleged illegal monopoly that could force it to sell Instagram, Whatsapp
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission claims that by acquiring Whatsapp and Instagram, the Facebook parent company aimed to eliminate competitors who could threaten Facebook's status as the go-to social media platform.
#lawsuit #monopoly #socialmedia #News #Business
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/meta-court-monopoly-1.7509525?cmp=rss

Meta heads to court over alleged illegal monopoly that could force it to sell Instagram, Whatsapp
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission claims that by acquiring Whatsapp and Instagram, the Facebook parent company aimed to eliminate competitors who could threaten Facebook's status as the go-to social media platform.
#lawsuit #monopoly #socialmedia #News #Business
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/meta-court-monopoly-1.7509525?cmp=rss

#Facebook parent #Meta faces a high-stakes trial starting on Mon on claims it built an illegal #socialmedia #monopoly by spending billions to acquire #Instagram & #WhatsApp, in a case where US #antitrust enforcers seek to unwind the deals.

The acquisitions more than a decade ago aimed to eliminate nascent competitors who could threaten Facebook's status as the go-to social media platform…, the #FTC claims. It filed the case in 2020 during #Trump's first term.

#law
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/facebook-owner-meta-faces-existential-threat-trial-over-instagram-whatsapp-2025-04-14/

When the wise point to the monopoly, the fools look at the bots.

#ai
#monopoly
#bigtech

In an unexpected win for antitrust, one of the #Nazi Party commissioners remaining on the Federal Trade Commission will save the agency’s investigation into pharmacy benefit managers by unrecusing himself from the case #antitrust #economy #Monopoly #uspol #uspolitics #ftc #FederalTradeCommission

“Is the future American to be born a slave?”

The first photographic or “lifeograph” cartoon published in a newspaper took aim at business trusts that threatened to enslave Americans.

After a competitive bidding war, Netflix has landed the rights to Hasbro's "Monopoly" reality competition series, bringing the legendary game to the real world in a large-scale social-experiment contest.

‘Monopoly’ Reality Competition Series Lands At Netflix
#News #HasbroEntertainment #Monopoly #Netflix

https://deadline.com/2025/04/monopoly-reality-competition-series-netflix-1236362416/

Look at this. Look at it.

The company is 23 years old and lists $15M/year in revenue.

The UI is so nonstandard and unintuitive that every year I talk a few people through screams and tears.

I like the product in a general sense; it basically works. However, it requires far more frustration, clicks, and hyper-specific, non-transferable knowledge than is reasonable to do that.

"This Commerce Commission report looks like being something of a landmark in New Zealand’s ability to monitor and regulate its monopoly/duopoly/cartel forms of market power. These concentrations of market power are pervasive in almost every sector of the New Zealand economy."

#GordonCampbell, 2025

https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2504/S00009/on-the-clash-between-auckland-airport-and-air-new-zealand.htm

(1/3)

Science fiction novelist, journalist and technology activist Cory Doctorow @pluralistic speech at the 2025 Ursula Franklin Lecture. >

https://vimeo.com/1059798497

#enshitification #monopsonies #twiddling #LockedUsers #LockedSellers #GAFAM #lecture #AlgorithmicWageDiscrimination#speech #SurveillanceCapitalism #interoperability #competition #regulation #WorkersPower #BigData #sellers #users #TechnoFeudalism #employment #ratings #Uberisation #queries #JediBlue #profiling #enshitified #internet #abuse #DataBrokers #AntitrustLaw #TechLayoffs #RegulatoryCaptures #TechnologicalAbuse #privacy #value #GiantPileOfShit #TechnicalMechanism #rankings #unions #digitalisation #nursing #speech #lecture #video #coporatocracy #monopoly

Reason 237 I fucking hate #brightspace: they lock all conversation about their product behind a soft paywall (e.g. I get stupid emails like this where I can't just see what Yi Yan.L.782 said). Every fucking interaction has to be on their platform, under their control. Much of the content is hidden from search engines.

Of course, once you get into their little walled garden you discover that searching for unfixed bugs or unmet feature requests is only possible on a one-term-at-a-time search basis. There's almost no way to see if related issues exist.

No surprise: when I dove into this last year and spent a couple of hours trying to answer some questions about basic, industry-standard functionality (spoiler: the answer to all of them was "No"), I figured out that they have hundreds or thousands of unresolved issues going back 20 years.

This company is worth a billion dollars.

Edit: I clicked the link. I did. The message was "We have also had this question. Does anyone else know..."

Holy fuck this is stupid.