Snapchat would have "Project Voldemort" folder on Facebook's bad behavior

Facebook is only 15 years old and yet, at that time it became the world's leading social media platform, with more than 2.4 billion users. It has also become the second largest digital advertising platform in the world, ranking second in a global duopoly dominated by Google. Now, it is the subject of a dozen bakery surveys that allege that it has peaked using unfair and anti-competitive tactics – and at least one competitor has kept records .

Snap, Snapchat's parent company, has kept a record "for years" detailing Facebook's attempts to thwart it, sources told the Wall Street Journal. The file, dubbed "Project Voldemort" after the wicked just-do-not-know-when-stay-dead-of- Harry Potter fame, "recounted Facebook movements that threatened to undermine Snap's business."

According to the WSJ, Snap's legal team has recorded instances where Facebook has discouraged influential people in social media present on multiple platforms to mention Snap on their Instagram accounts. Snap's executives also thought that Facebook was removing Instagram trends from Snap content, when such content was shared there.

Facebook has twice attempted to acquire Snapchat and has been rejected twice. In 2013, Snap had rejected a $ 3 billion purchase offer. In 2016, Facebook would have made new openings to the firm, which instead launched an IPO in early 2017.

After the reviews, Facebook has begun to clone many of Snapchat's most popular features, The Economist reported in 2018. Instagram Stories was launched in August 2016 and Facebook Stories followed suit in March 2017.

Break the competition?

Facebook's behavior towards its competitors is at the heart of many anti-trust investigations against it. Being a dominant player in an industry is not illegal, even if you are the only real player in a sector, as long as you play fair. Abusing this market power or actively using it to crush, remove or buy back competitors means anti-competitive behavior. This is illegal.

It is now more difficult for start-ups to get off to a good start, reported The Economist last year, thanks to the preponderant influence exerted by the biggest players in technology – Facebook, Google and Amazon – in the area. "We know that big tech companies are intimidating startups by having them accepted, announcing that they will launch a competing service and that they will cease their activities if they do not accept an agreement," said a source who led such negotiations on behalf of a large technology company told The Economist.

The more acquisitions a company like Facebook makes, the better it is to make future acquisitions. The WSJ reports that Onavo, an Israeli start-up that Facebook acquired in 2013, is also on regulators' radar. The free application of Onavo was presented as a VPN … and redirected the traffic via Facebook servers, where it could then be connected and analyzed. The data collected via Onavo allowed Facebook to become aware of Snapchat's growing popularity and to tell it when its Stories features managed to siphon Snapchat users. Onavo's data also contributed to the acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook in 2014.

(Onavo was removed from the Apple App Store in 2018 and Google Play a few months later; Facebook finally stopped it in May.)

The actions of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg are also among the many antitrust investigations, notes the WSJ:

In some cases, after Facebook's openings were rejected, the social media giant copied the features of the old targets.

For example, when Zuckerberg met startup founders including Evan Spiegel, chief executive of Snap, and Dennis Crowley, co-founder of Foursquare Inc., he presented them with two scenarios: either they accept the price that he or she offered. for their businesses, or face Facebook's efforts to copy their products and make their exploitation more difficult, according to people familiar with the subject. In both cases, after the companies rejected the openings, Facebook soon published features that mimicked Snap and Foursquare products.

In 2014, Foursquare began to move from a consumer-centric application to the provision of location-based technologies and data to businesses.

Expanding the investigation

At this point, it may be easier to compile a list of regulators not surveying Facebook than a list of regulators who do.

In June, the Congress launched an antitrust investigation into "competition in digital markets". Several hearings related to this issue took place in June and July, and others are scheduled for this fall. The Judiciary Committee of the House has also recently sent a massive request for information to the four companies, seeking to obtain relevant data for a decade.

In July, traditional antitrust regulators were all on board. The Justice Ministry has publicly confirmed that its antitrust division is actively investigating "concerns widely voiced by consumers, businesses and entrepreneurs" about "market-leading online platforms". The agency has not named names, but it is generally considered that this list of "market-leading" platforms includes Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.

This month, Facebook also told investors that it was the target of an open antitrust investigation by the Federal Trade Commission.

Attorneys General of several states also launched an antitrust investigation on Facebook earlier this month. New York Attorney General Letitia James said the investigation would determine "whether their actions endanger consumer data, reduce the quality of consumer choice or increase the price of advertising."

In the meantime, Facebook could be a US company, but its global footprint means that regulators around the world have a direct interest in its behavior. The EU is also actively questioning Facebook for antitrust reasons, according to media reports, and member states such as Germany are also taking action. Australian regulators also think they should perhaps take a closer look.