A look at some of the metrics that FTC can use to define Facebook's alleged monopoly in its refiled antitrust suit, including time on-site and “active users”
Despite some compelling allegations, a federal judge dismissed the FTC's antitrust complaint against Facebook due …
Context & Ripple Effects
The FTC's first complaint failed in June when a federal judge ruled its definition of market dominance insufficient, though it left the door open to refile within 30 days. Experts at the time said that window was enough to fix the monopoly allegation, and this piece shows how: anchoring the 'personal social networking' market in measurable engagement metrics like time on-site and active users rather than loose market labels.
First-order effects
- The FTC now has to defend a market definition built on engagement metrics, putting Facebook's internal usage data — time on-site, active user counts — at the center of discovery and expert testimony.
- Facebook's legal team gains a concrete target: attacking whether time on-site and active users actually delineate a market Facebook dominates, rather than fighting a vague dominance claim.
Second-order effects
- The refiled complaint's claim that Facebook has driven up ad prices via monopoly control is already drawing analytical pushback — critics argue the ad-price allegation doesn't hold up — meaning the metrics fight extends beyond market definition to whether monopoly power caused measurable harm.
- The difficulty of making the charge stick, as the earlier dismissals of both the FTC and state AG suits showed, keeps pressure on lawmakers weighing tougher antitrust statutes as the backstop if litigation stalls.
Third-order effects
- If engagement metrics like time on-site become accepted tools for defining social-networking markets, platform antitrust cases shift toward data-intensive battles over internal analytics, raising the evidentiary bar for agencies and favoring defendants with superior measurement resources.
- A pattern of dismissal-and-refile around market definition points toward legislative modernization of antitrust law as the likelier route for structural change against large platforms, with courts signaling what current statutes can and cannot reach.
The trend: Platform antitrust is converging on engagement-metric market definitions as the FTC iterates its Facebook case through dismissal and refile.