eprintid: 10132866
rev_number: 27
eprint_status: archive
userid: 608
dir: disk0/10/13/28/66
datestamp: 2021-08-17 11:24:23
lastmod: 2022-07-04 17:11:55
status_changed: 2022-01-13 16:51:39
type: article
metadata_visibility: show
creators_name: Lovdahl Gormsen, L
creators_name: Llanos, JT
title: Facebook’s Anticompetitive Lean in Strategies
ispublished: pub
divisions: UCL
divisions: B04
divisions: C05
divisions: F48
keywords: Antitrust, Facebook, Privacy, personal data, data
note: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.
abstract: Facebook is under fire on several fronts and with good reason. Regulators strive to make sense of and address a plethora of seemingly unrelated issues that arise from the operation of its platform. These range from antitrust, privacy violations, dissemination of harmful content and speech, deception and polarisation to political manipulation. This paper identifies Facebook’s unrestricted and excessive data collection as a unifying theme that requires immediate antitrust action. Once a privacy-oriented social network, Facebook soon mutated into a surveillance machine designed to hoover people’s personal data to identify and understand people’s interests, preferences and emotions and turn that knowledge into profit through the sale of targeted ads. Since people’s innate preference for privacy stood in the way of Facebook’s growth, Facebook resorted to privacy intrusions and deception to access as much user data as possible, thereby gaining market power. Currently, its overwhelming dominant position in the social media market means that no matter how much data Facebook extracts from users, how transparent its information about its data processing practices is and how many privacy scandals ensue from its reckless handling of data, users have nowhere else to go. This paper provides a course of action to correct this unacceptable anticompetitive outcome. The imposition of unfair commercial terms on consumers, the distortion of the competitive process through privacy violations and misleading practices, the squeezing of news publishers’ traffic and foreclosure of actual and potential competitors by Facebook, can be stopped. A combination of data and consumer protection measures alone cannot stop Facebook’s actions, but antitrust enforcement can be used to curb Facebook’s ability to reinforce its data-driven abuse of its market power.
date: 2021-06-17
publisher: Elsevier BV
official_url: http://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3400204
oa_status: green
full_text_type: other
language: eng
primo: open
primo_central: open_green
verified: verified_manual
elements_id: 1881878
doi: 10.2139/ssrn.3400204
lyricists_name: Llanos, Jose
lyricists_id: JTLLA85
actors_name: Llanos, Jose
actors_id: JTLLA85
actors_role: owner
full_text_status: public
publication: SSRN
citation:        Lovdahl Gormsen, L;    Llanos, JT;      (2021)    Facebook’s Anticompetitive Lean in Strategies.                   SSRN        10.2139/ssrn.3400204 <https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3400204>.       Green open access   
 
document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10132866/7/Llanos_Facebook%E2%80%99s%20Anticompetitive%20Lean%20in%20Strategies_AAM.pdf