{"id":66810,"date":"2019-11-14T17:56:18","date_gmt":"2019-11-14T12:26:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/one\/?p=66810"},"modified":"2025-06-26T17:09:37","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T11:39:37","slug":"facebook-antitrust-investigation-amazon-tying-lawsuit-fake-ads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/facebook-antitrust-investigation-amazon-tying-lawsuit-fake-ads\/","title":{"rendered":"California Joins Facebook Investigation, Amazon Accused of \u201cTying\u201d by Online Merchant, Facebook Pulled Up Over Fake Ads and more"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is Part II of the IP Privacy and Anti-trust news for the week of 11th November, 2019. Part I is available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

California Joins the Facebook Investigation Cavalcade; Amazon Accused of \u201cTying\u201d by Online Merchant; Lavazza Dragged to Court by Amazon Reseller; Tik Tok Responds to Allegations of National Security Risk; Facebook Pulled Up Over Fake Ads and more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

California Joins the Facebook Investigation Cavalcade<\/h3>\n

Over the last couple of months, nearly every US state has announced investigations into antitrust or privacy-related matters of Google or Facebook, or both. Conspicuous by its absence from that list was the home of Big Tech itself, California. However, it turns out, California officials have been investigating Facebook over its privacy practices for over a year now, state attorney general Xavier Becerra announced.<\/p>\n

California\u2019s probe was launched in 2018, shortly after news broke about the Cambridge Analytica scandal, wherein the political consulting firm had improperly accessed data of tens of millions of users of the social media giant. However, what initially began as an inquiry into the scandal developed into a more overarching investigation into potential violations of California law by Facebook, via a wilful deceit of users and misrepresentation of its privacy practices. The announcement of the investigation was accompanied by a subpoena for key information the company has allegedly failed to release, including executive communication regarding auditing third party developers\u2019 access to data, advertising policies, and email correspondence from both CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg.<\/p>\n

On its end, Facebook, through a statement by Will Castleberry, Facebook’s vice president of state and local policy, has claimed it has \u201ccooperated extensively with the state of California\u2019s investigation\u201d, and has \u201cprovided thousands of pages of written responses and hundreds of thousands of documents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Facebook has been embroiled in countless investigations over the last year, pertaining to the Cambridge Analytica scandal and its privacy policies and practices in general. The Federal Trade Commission\u2019s investigation into the scandal resulted in a $5 billion fine, and another investigation by the FTC\u2014this time pertaining to antitrust violations\u2014is currently underway. This is in addition to House Judiciary Committee\u2019s antitrust investigation along with investigations by 47 attorney generals across the US.<\/p>\n

Amazon Accused of \u201cTying\u201d by Online Merchant<\/h3>\n

In a potential blow to the e-commerce behemoth, an online merchant has sent a letter to federal lawmakers accusing Amazon of forcing sellers to use its expensive logistics services, ultimately raising prices for consumers. The 62-page letter effectively lays out an antitrust case that underscores the consequent harm to consumers\u2014which is the traditional standard for antitrust cases in the US. The primary allegation against Amazon is that it is \u201ctying\u201d its marketplace and logistics services together, an antitrust violation where a company\u2019s dominance in one market is used to gain an advantage in another.<\/p>\n

The letter claims that online merchants are penalised for using any logistics services but Amazon\u2019s, through decreased visibility on the e-commerce site, as well as heavy penalties\u2014including suspension\u2014for delayed deliveries (which are not levied if Amazon\u2019s services are being used). This forces merchants to use Amazon\u2019s logistics services, even though, as claimed in the letter, competitors\u2019 services are cheaper and faster. The merchant, who claims he can\u2019t pursue an antitrust case himself due to the terms of his contract with Amazon, hopes that the Federal Trade Commission, which is already interviewing Amazon merchants, will pursue an investigation, or that a logistics services competitor will file a suit, alleging unfair losses in business due to Amazon\u2019s practices.<\/p>\n

Amazon, in an emailed statement, countered the merchant\u2019s allegations, claiming that the prices of its logistics services were competitive and often cheaper than competitors\u2019, and that merchants were not penalised in any manner for using other delivery options. However, in a July letter to a federal antitrust panel, Amazon conceded that products of merchants who did use Amazon\u2019s services were likely to feature more prominently in Amazon\u2019s search results, but this was not because of algorithmic bias, but because Amazon\u2019s logistics \u201cgenerally provides a better and more reliable experience for our customers than fulfilment through other means\u201d.<\/p>\n

Lavazza Dragged to Court by Amazon Reseller<\/h3>\n

Lavazza, an Italian manufacturer of coffee products, has been slapped with a lawsuit by an American reseller, LY Berditchev Corp., which accuses the coffee manufacturer of filing false intellectual property infringement complaints and defaming the reselling company. According to the lawsuit, Berditchev is in the business of reselling products, including via Amazon, and Lavazza\u2019s products are amongst those being sold by Berditchev. The suit goes on to claim that Lavazza filed false intellectual property infringement complaints with Amazon, alleging that the products being sold were counterfeit, a claim vehemently denied in the suit.<\/p>\n

Berditchev further claims that Amazon has a policy of acting on nearly every \u201cproperly submitted\u201d infringement complaint, \u201cto meet a minimum liability standard\u201d, and here too, the reseller\u2019s products were taken down from the site. Despite repeated requests, the suit claims, Lavazza refused to retract these false complaints, damaging the reseller\u2019s immediate revenue, as well as its \u201cperformance metrics\u201d on the e-commerce site, hampering the sale of other products of the reseller. Consequently, Berditchev has filed the lawsuit, claiming that Lavazza has made false and misleading representations, engaged in unfair competitive practices (as the two companies are competitors in the sale of coffee products), and defamed the reseller.<\/p>\n

Tik Tok Responds to Allegations That it is a National Security Risk<\/h3>\n

In light of investigation by the US government of potential national security risks posed by TikTok, the social media video app owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, Vanessa Pappas, the general manager of TikTok US, issued a formal response to these concerns via a blog post addressed to TikTok\u2019s stakeholders. She outlined several steps the company had taken, over the past year, in a bid to allay fears that the app was a risk to national security. She said claimed that the company had built a senior team of US leaders with industry experience, and that content moderation on the site was done by \u201cUS-based employees\u201d.<\/p>\n

She added that the company employed \u201cseveral rounds of human moderation\u201d and reviews to ensure adherence to its US policies. Pappas further claimed that all US data collected by the company was kept in the US and none of its data centres were located in China, and the company employed a team dedicated to ensuring compliance with cybersecurity standards. However, she did not address issues pertaining to copyright infringement, which had been raised by several major music publishers.<\/p>\n

Facebook Pulled Up Over Fake Ads<\/h3>\n

In a lawsuit filed against Facebook by a media personality, John de Mol, over the misappropriation of his and other celebrities\u2019 likeness in fake ads related to cryptocurrency scams on the social media website, a Dutch court not only ordered Facebook to remove all the offending ads, but also directed that Facebook can be required to use filter technologies to pre-emptively take down such ads. These fake ads had become a major concern, with victims of scams furthered by these ads reporting a total of \u20ac1.7 million in damages.<\/p>\n

Facebook\u2019s arguments were that pre-emptively removing such ads would run afoul of EU law against general monitoring conditions being placed on Internet platforms, and of the right to freedom of expression. It also claimed that it was just a neutral platform and could not be held liable for content posted by users. However, the Court rejected these arguments citing a recent EU ruling that directed platforms to remove hate speech.<\/p>\n

A similar suit last year, brought by UK consumer advice personality Martin Lewis, was withdrawn after Facebook agreed to apply new measures to combat such fake ads\u2014Facebook added a \u201cscam ads report button\u201d. While it is unclear whether Facebook aims to appeal the verdict of the Dutch court, it has promised to bring this button to its Dutch site early next month.<\/p>\n

Authored and compiled by\u00a0 Neharika Vhatkar (Associate, BananaIP Counsels) and Param Gupta\u00a0(Legal Intern)<\/strong>
\nThe IP, Privacy and Antitrust Law News Bulletin is brought to you by the Consulting\/Strategy Division of BananaIP Counsels, a Top IP Firm in India. If you have any questions, or need any clarifications, please write to\u00a0contact@bananaip.com<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0with the subject: IP, Privacy and Antitrust\u00a0 Law News.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: Please note that the news bulletin has been put together from different sources, primary and secondary, and BananaIP\u2019s reporters may not have verified all the news published in the bulletin. You may write to\u00a0contact@bananaip.com<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0for corrections and take down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This update examines major legal actions against Facebook, Amazon, and TikTok, focusing on antitrust, privacy, and intellectual property issues. It provides a concise analysis of ongoing investigations and lawsuits impacting the global technology sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":24,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3822,952],"tags":[10754,10756,10753,10755,5,10561,3774,10757],"class_list":["post-66810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-intellectual-property","category-ip-and-antitrust-competition","category-social-media-law","tag-amazon-tying","tag-cambridge-analytica","tag-facebook-antitrust","tag-fake-ads","tag-intellectual-property","tag-online-marketplace","tag-privacy-law","tag-tiktok-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66810"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140366,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66810\/revisions\/140366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}