Facebook Inc believes it could acquire other large companies without running afoul of antitrust enforcers if the world’s largest social media network chose to enter a new market, Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said on Tuesday.
Sandberg was asked on stage by a journalist at the Code Conference whether Facebook, because of its size, would be allowed to buy companies as it has, such as virtual reality firm Oculus VR Inc and messaging service WhatsApp.
“It really depends what it is. If it was in something that wasn’t core to what we were doing and a new area, like Oculus was, I think it would probably be allowed,” Sandberg said.
Photo: Reuters
She gave no indication that a deal was forthcoming.
Facebook, one of the largest corporations by market capitalization, has grown in part through acquisitions.
In 2014 it bought WhatsApp for US$22 billion and Oculus for US$3 billion, but has not made a similar purchase since. It bought Instagram for US$1 billion in 2012.
EU regulators have expressed concern about a plan by Facebook and WhatsApp to begin sharing users’ telephone numbers and other data.
Sandberg said sharing data between the two services had benefits, such as catching people who exploit children, and that Facebook should not be broken up.
“If you are doing child-exploitative content, WhatsApp’s encrypted, but we know who you are from Facebook. We can take your account down on WhatsApp, too,” she said.
Meanwhile, moments before Sandberg took the stage, Snap Inc chief executive officer Evan Spiegel launched a stinging critique of Facebook at the conference, dismissing both its appeal and its successful attempts to copy Snapchat’s most popular features.
Snap “has a mission that runs counter to traditional social media,” he told the conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.
Snap invented Snapchat “stories,” through which people post videos of what happens during their day, as it happens. The videos last for 24 hours.
In response, Facebook has built a similar product for all of its applications from Instagram to WhatsApp, some of which now have far more users than Snap does.
Analysts have pointed to Facebook’s success as a hindrance to Snap’s growth, mostly because people would not see the need to sign up for Snapchat if they can do the same thing somewhere else.
“At Snapchat it’s all about building deeper relationships with the people that you’re close to,” he said. At Facebook, “they are having trouble changing the DNA of their company, which is all about people competing with each other for attention.”
Spiegel implied that Facebook’s copycatting was the least of his worries.
Facebook’s copycatting “bothers my wife more than it bothers me,” he said.
“If you can create something that is so beautiful and simple that the only thing other people can do is copy it exactly, that is the most fantastic feeling,” Spiegel said. “It is the most fantastic thing in the entire world.”
Since taking his company public in March last year, Spiegel has endured frequent executive turnover, issues with employee morale and a backlash from a redesign of its core application, which he has said was unexpectedly disruptive.
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