5 ms·

It's not unreasonable when you consider this in terms anticompetitiveness and related laws. Imagine if Microsoft just came along one day and literally banned a

It's not unreasonable when you consider this in terms anticompetitiveness and related laws. Imagine if Microsoft just came along one day and literally banned any office software, including LibreOffice etc. from running on it's OSs. Imagine if Nissan bought up a bunch of gas chains in the US and refused to sell gas to ... to let's say ... GM cars. Or the electric company, which had invested in some solar panel outlays, decided to ban all other 3rd party solar panels from the grid. These things are always a little fuzzy, but they are real. Also - the lack of user clear consent is another one ie telling users that apps 'cannot extract their data' but in reality, they are selling it to Netflix. FB can legitimately explain a way a lot of issues lately, but this one is bad. I think it's far worse than the Cambridge Analytica scandal in which case they weren't really doing anything wrong, just late to maybe close off said APIs.

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
The difference is that the Windows and Office are (or were) stand alone products that used no MS resources after the sale. A free online service running on hardware you don't control isn't obligated to provide free service for everyone indefinitely. Same as "No shirt, no shoes, no service". A proprietor can refuse dealings with toxic customers.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  We're not talking about 'toxic customers' who don't obey universal rules. So that's not a good example. We're talking about a store arbitrarily discriminating between customers on terms of it's own choosing. ... which is what makes it harder. As for your 'software sold after the fact' ... welcome to iOS / AppStore to see who 'controls' what :)
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- bduerst 8y ago
  Key difference: - "No shirt, no shoes, no service" is a rule that applies to all customers, same with blocking customers that develop toxic behavior. - Specifically targeting and dropping service for someone who launched a different competing service, for that reason, is anti-competitive.
  - throwawaymath 8y ago
    I don't think that is anti-competitive under the legal[1] interpretation, but I could be wrong. My understanding of the legal precedent here is that a company is allowed to disallow service for any reason whatsoever as long as there is no contract in place. The only time it becomes anticompetitive is if a product prevents users or customers from being able to access the competing product. The example I'm thinking of is Microsoft with Internet Explorer, where users were unable to use a browser of their choice. Here a company is not being allowed to use an API, but users are not prevented from using the product if they'd like. They just won't get all the functionality of Facebook within that company's product. Facebook's behavior seems more comparable to Apple disallowing use of privileged iOS APIs in competing mobile browsers rather than Microsoft not allowing users to install competing browsers. But I'm not an expert on monopolies, so I'm happy to be corrected here. __________________________ 1. NB - I'm not making a claim or observation about ethics or what ought to be, I'm asking about what is, legally.
    - sonnyblarney 8y ago
      From [1] "Price discrimination is made illegal under the Sherman Antitrust Act. 15 U.S.C. §2, the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C. §13, and by the Robinson-Patman Act, 15 U.S.C. §§13-13b, 21a, when engaged in for the purpose of lessening competition, such as tying the lower prices to the purchase of other goods or services." I'd gather that the same might apply to sale/no sale and not just prices, i.e. you can't not sell something to someone purely for competitive reasons, there has to be 'some reason'. [1] https://definitions.uslegal.com/p/price-discrimination/ https://definitions.uslegal.com/p/price-discrimination/ Full disclosure: I'm definitely not a lawyer.
      - Spooky23 8y ago
        That stuff was reinterpretated in the 70/80s. If it doesn’t raise cost to the public, it’s not a problem.
    - bduerst 8y ago
      Not in the UK or EU - you don't need to have market dominance to be fined for anti-competitive behavior.
crorella 8y ago
lol, is totally not the same, as far as I know FB never blocked Vine from having a page or anything like that.
bluesign 8y ago
I think vine situation is a bit different then this examples. First of all, let's see the facts. - Sharing user's friendship data with all applications was wrong decision. There were a lot of bad actors. - So Facebook decided to stop this practice. But in the process some good actors are also burned, so they implemented some system to share some limited data considering: - You have some critical mass of users - sign a special agreement to promise you will not use this data in a bad way - if having not access to this friendship data breaking your app's model - and probably your app is not competing with facebook's business model so twitter came, agreed on this terms, got whitelisted. Then probably stepped over fb's toe with vine, and facebook revoked their access. The thing is facebook didn't remove because it was competitive, they didn't allow competitive in the first place. This is not different from Apple not allowing another browser engines, or another app stores in their ecosystem.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  Facebooks decision to whitelist was entirely 'inner circle' and strategic. It was not an open, rules-based scenario. For example, there's no reason that 'Vine' did anything to breach the 'good actor' scenario - FB banned them for competitive reasons. 'Bumble' got special access because FB is an investor. (Did OkCupid? Tinder?) Moroever, it seems that users were not properly notified of the 'good actors use' of their data.
  - bluesign 8y ago
    Actually in the document published, it is pretty clear. Reciprocity part is explaining clearly. (especially strategic competitors) The key point is 'equitable value exchange'. If I am building a social network, leaching user/data from facebook, it is different than creating an app inside facebook ecosystem. This is the main distinction I guess.
  - bluesign 8y ago
    tbh I don't know any special access bumble got, from outside tinder and bumble doesn't look much different on facebook usage.
  - 8y ago
edoo 8y ago
I worked in a city department with an obscene full service Microsoft contract and running any Linux machines on the same network was a violation of the TOS and therefor not allowed or considered even when obviously appropriate.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  In the US? More likely the IT leadership interpreted it incorrectly... they define Linux devices as in scope for your enrollment. That was the big problem when Novell tried to pitch desktop Linux... you’d pay twice.
  - edoo 8y ago
    Cali 14 years ago, county zoning office.

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago

The difference is that the Windows and Office are (or were) stand alone products that used no MS resources after the sale. A free online service running on hardware you don't control isn't obligated to provide free service for everyone indefinitely. Same as "No shirt, no shoes, no service". A proprietor can refuse dealings with toxic customers.

sonnyblarney 8y ago
We're not talking about 'toxic customers' who don't obey universal rules. So that's not a good example. We're talking about a store arbitrarily discriminating between customers on terms of it's own choosing. ... which is what makes it harder. As for your 'software sold after the fact' ... welcome to iOS / AppStore to see who 'controls' what :)
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
bduerst 8y ago
Key difference: - "No shirt, no shoes, no service" is a rule that applies to all customers, same with blocking customers that develop toxic behavior. - Specifically targeting and dropping service for someone who launched a different competing service, for that reason, is anti-competitive.
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  I don't think that is anti-competitive under the legal[1] interpretation, but I could be wrong. My understanding of the legal precedent here is that a company is allowed to disallow service for any reason whatsoever as long as there is no contract in place. The only time it becomes anticompetitive is if a product prevents users or customers from being able to access the competing product. The example I'm thinking of is Microsoft with Internet Explorer, where users were unable to use a browser of their choice. Here a company is not being allowed to use an API, but users are not prevented from using the product if they'd like. They just won't get all the functionality of Facebook within that company's product. Facebook's behavior seems more comparable to Apple disallowing use of privileged iOS APIs in competing mobile browsers rather than Microsoft not allowing users to install competing browsers. But I'm not an expert on monopolies, so I'm happy to be corrected here. __________________________ 1. NB - I'm not making a claim or observation about ethics or what ought to be, I'm asking about what is, legally.
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    From [1] "Price discrimination is made illegal under the Sherman Antitrust Act. 15 U.S.C. §2, the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C. §13, and by the Robinson-Patman Act, 15 U.S.C. §§13-13b, 21a, when engaged in for the purpose of lessening competition, such as tying the lower prices to the purchase of other goods or services." I'd gather that the same might apply to sale/no sale and not just prices, i.e. you can't not sell something to someone purely for competitive reasons, there has to be 'some reason'. [1] https://definitions.uslegal.com/p/price-discrimination/ https://definitions.uslegal.com/p/price-discrimination/ Full disclosure: I'm definitely not a lawyer.
    - Spooky23 8y ago
      That stuff was reinterpretated in the 70/80s. If it doesn’t raise cost to the public, it’s not a problem.
  - bduerst 8y ago
    Not in the UK or EU - you don't need to have market dominance to be fined for anti-competitive behavior.

crorella 8y ago

lol, is totally not the same, as far as I know FB never blocked Vine from having a page or anything like that.

bluesign 8y ago

I think vine situation is a bit different then this examples. First of all, let's see the facts. - Sharing user's friendship data with all applications was wrong decision. There were a lot of bad actors. - So Facebook decided to stop this practice. But in the process some good actors are also burned, so they implemented some system to share some limited data considering: - You have some critical mass of users - sign a special agreement to promise you will not use this data in a bad way - if having not access to this friendship data breaking your app's model - and probably your app is not competing with facebook's business model so twitter came, agreed on this terms, got whitelisted. Then probably stepped over fb's toe with vine, and facebook revoked their access. The thing is facebook didn't remove because it was competitive, they didn't allow competitive in the first place. This is not different from Apple not allowing another browser engines, or another app stores in their ecosystem.

sonnyblarney 8y ago
Facebooks decision to whitelist was entirely 'inner circle' and strategic. It was not an open, rules-based scenario. For example, there's no reason that 'Vine' did anything to breach the 'good actor' scenario - FB banned them for competitive reasons. 'Bumble' got special access because FB is an investor. (Did OkCupid? Tinder?) Moroever, it seems that users were not properly notified of the 'good actors use' of their data.
- bluesign 8y ago
  Actually in the document published, it is pretty clear. Reciprocity part is explaining clearly. (especially strategic competitors) The key point is 'equitable value exchange'. If I am building a social network, leaching user/data from facebook, it is different than creating an app inside facebook ecosystem. This is the main distinction I guess.
- bluesign 8y ago
  tbh I don't know any special access bumble got, from outside tinder and bumble doesn't look much different on facebook usage.
- 8y ago

edoo 8y ago

I worked in a city department with an obscene full service Microsoft contract and running any Linux machines on the same network was a violation of the TOS and therefor not allowed or considered even when obviously appropriate.

Spooky23 8y ago
In the US? More likely the IT leadership interpreted it incorrectly... they define Linux devices as in scope for your enrollment. That was the big problem when Novell tried to pitch desktop Linux... you’d pay twice.
- edoo 8y ago
  Cali 14 years ago, county zoning office.