The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is preparing to file an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook. Bloomberg reports this with reference to its sources.
The regulator has been investigating the company for over a year now. The FTC wants to understand if social media has harmed market competition.
According to SearchEngines, the lawsuit could be filed by the end of this year. However, the final decision has not yet been made. A majority of the five FTC commissioners will be required to file a claim.
The press services of Facebook and the regulator declined to comment.
The FTC opened an investigation against Facebook in June 2019 – a month before it fined the company $5 billion in the wake of the Cambridge Analytics scandal.
As part of the investigation, the regulator is also examining the latest acquisitions of Facebook in terms of a possible violation of antitrust laws.
In addition to the FTC, Facebook is also the subject of an antitrust investigation by a group of state attorneys general. They can join the FTC lawsuit or open their own case against the company.
NIX Solutions reminds that the US Department of Justice is now actively preparing to file a lawsuit against Google, which may be registered in the coming weeks.