Power Play: Countersuit Alleges Facebook Is Monopolistic
- by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, July 12, 2009
"Facebook is attempting to prevent Power from providing tools to Internet users that allow those users to exercise ownership and control over their own data," Power alleged in documents filed in federal district court in the northern district of California.
Power aggregates data from social networking sites, enabling people with accounts through a variety of services -- including Orkut, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter -- to access all of their information from one portal. To accomplish this, Power asks users to provide log-in information for their social networking sites and then imports their information.
Facebook objects to this practice and, late last year, sued Power for copyright infringement for making momentary copies of Facebook's Web pages in order to extract information. Last week, Power fired back and accused Facebook running roughshod over members' rights to control their data. Power also filed its own claims against Facebook, accusing the site of violating federal antitrust law as well as California's unfair competition law.
Power argues that Facebook engages in some of the same activity it's complaining about, noting that Facebook asks users for their email addresses and passwords in order to import members' contacts. "This practice fueled Facebook's growth by allowing Facebook to add millions of new users, and to provide users with convenient tools to encourage their friends and contacts to join Facebook as well," Power alleges. "Facebook seeks to stifle competitors from using the same type of utility."
Facebook said Friday that it intends to fight Power's allegations. The company also said that Power's technology could pose a threat to members' privacy. Among other features, Power enables users to easily transfer photos or messages marked "private" to other social networking services. "Users rely on us to protect their data and enforce the privacy decisions they make on Facebook," the company said in a statement.
But Power's CEO, Steve Vachani, argues that users don't need the company's technology to make copies of photos, messages, or other information from Facebook. "I can already take my photo and put it somewhere else," Vachani said, adding that Power simply makes the process more efficient.
Cyberlawyer Venkat Balasubramani.com of Seattle said that both companies have some support for their positions. "Power.com makes some good points about Facebook's own access of third party sites and the fact that Facebook is using overly broad notions of copyright and trademark law to protect access to user data," he says. "While there's some merit to this, the flip side is that Facebook has good arguments for why it should be able to police its networks -- security and maintaining consistency of access through third party channels."
