New York and a number of states said to be planning on filing a lawsuit against Facebook on Wednesday afternoon as the social network giant is said to have violated antitrust law put in place.
Two sources close to the issue gave an insight about the situation making it known that New York Attorney General Letitia James; office said it will make a major “business related” announcement on Wednesday afternoon. North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein’s office announced a press call about “a technology company.”
The lawsuit will be filed in federal court in Washington, one source said. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has probed Facebook the same way state attorneys have with more than 40 expected to join in on the lawsuit.
If the lawsuits are filed, Facebook would be the second major tech company sued this year. The Justice Department sued Alphabet Inc’s Google in October. A spokesman for Facebook declined comment on Wednesday.
The company’s co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg in summer defended the stance of the company about its acquisition of other big platforms such as Instagram and WhatsApp saying that his company has helped them expand from small, insignificant companies into powerhouses and also argued that Facebook has competitors which includes other top tech firms.
Back in 2019, the social media giant paid the sum of US$5 billion to settle a privacy probe with the FTC in order to resolve allegations that it violated a 2012 consent decree by inappropriately sharing user information with the Cambridge Analytica which was involved in a grand political scandal in 2018.
