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Court Dismissal of Facebook Complaint Demonstrates the Need to Update Antitrust Laws

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A federal court today dismissed the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust complaint against Facebook, as well as a parallel case brought by 48 state attorneys general. Alex Harman, competition policy advocate for Public Citizen, released the following statement:

“Once again, our antitrust laws have been shown by the courts to be woefully inadequate to address the abuses of the richest companies in the world. While we are encouraged by the court’s willingness to let the FTC amend its complaint, the underlying problem is that the law has not evolved with these monopolies. Regardless of how this particular case moves forward, it is time for Congress to update the antitrust laws to rein in the massive monopolies in Silicon Valley and across every sector of our economy.

“The tech antitrust legislation passed last week by the House Judiciary Committee would address the problems with companies like Facebook, and they should be passed into law urgently. Additional reforms to the antitrust laws will be necessary to stop powerful corporate monopolies from harming consumers, workers, innovators, and our democracy. Facebook is one of the worst offenders, and it’s long past time for this company to be broken up.”