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FTC Files Antitrust Suit Against Facebook

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Washington DC, The Federal Trade Commission today sued Facebook, alleging that the company is illegally maintaining its personal social networking monopoly through a years-long course of anticompetitive conduct. Following a lengthy investigation in cooperation with a coalition of attorneys general of 46 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam, the complaint alleges that Facebook has engaged in a systematic strategy—including its 2012 acquisition of up-and-coming rival Instagram, its 2014 acquisition of the mobile messaging app WhatsApp, and the imposition of anticompetitive conditions on software developers—to eliminate threats to its monopoly. This course of conduct harms competition, leaves consumers with few choices for personal social networking, and deprives advertisers of the benefits of competition.

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Bramnick bill forcing telemarketers to identify themselves continues to advance

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Trenton NJ, A bill sponsored by Assembly Republican Leader Jon Bramnick requiring telemarketers to provide the contact information of their employer within seconds of a call is another step closer to becoming law following Assembly approval today.

Jon Bramnick

“People are bombarded every day by annoying telemarketing calls,” said Bramnick (R-Union). “When a person sits down to dinner or is relaxing after a hard day’s work the last thing they want is to be interrupted by an anonymous call for a product they have no interest in.”

Bramnick’s bill (A1954) requires a telemarketer to provide customers with the name, mailing address, and telephone number of their employer within 30 seconds of making the call. The bill aligns state law with federal law. Violators can be penalized. The Federal Trade Commission collected $120 million in fines last year.

“People on the federal Do Not Call list deserve to know who exactly is calling them so they can report any violations,” concluded Bramnick. “Telemarketers need to know there will be consequences for ignoring the law.”

There were 4.1 billion robocalls, including telemarketing calls, received in May alone nationwide, up from 3.3 billion in April. That’s more than 1,500 robocalls every second of every minute of every day, seven days a week, according to the YouMail Robocall Index, which estimates monthly robocalls in the U.S.