By Joe Reedy
Streaming service FuboTV has filed an antitrust lawsuit against ESPN, Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery and Hulu, which are planning to launch a sports-streaming venture in the fall.
The lawsuit has been filed in the Southern District of New York. FuboTV, which focuses primarily on live sports, is seeking a jury trial.
The Wall Street Journal was the first to report on the lawsuit.
"Each of these companies has consistently engaged in anticompetitive practices that aim to monopolize the market, stifle any form of competition, create higher pricing for subscribers and cheat consumers from deserved choice," David Gandler, Co-founder and CEO of FuboTV, said in a statement. "Simply put, this sports cartel blocked our playbook for many years and now they are effectively stealing it for themselves."
ESPN, Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery and Hulu declined to comment about the lawsuit.
FuboTV says in its filing that it has tried for years to offer a sports-only streaming service but has been prevented from doing so because of ESPN. Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery has imposed bundling requirements on FuboTV which it says forces "Fubo to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to license and broadcast content that its customers do not want or need."
"Faced with the threat of disruptive competition from Fubo and other upstarts, Defendants have responded by locking arms (and locking others out) to steal Fubo's core business idea — a sports-centric package of channels — while blocking Fubo from offering that same package," the company said in its court filing.
ESPN, Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery and Hulu announced their plans to offer a sports streaming service on Feb. 6. The three companies will each share one-third ownership in the joint venture. A name for the service and pricing will be announced at a later date.
FuboTV not only wants the proposed joint venture shut down, but it is seeking cash damages. If the court does not rule to do either, FuboTV is seeking restrictions on the joint venture so that competition remains in the marketplace.
FuboTV was founded in 2015. In its most recent quarterly filing last November, it reported 1.48 million paid subscribers in North America for the third quarter, an all-time high for the company.
Joe Reedy is an AP sports writer
South Korea fines Meta $15 million for illegally collecting information on Facebook users
South Korea's privacy watchdog on Tuesday fined social media company Meta 21.6 billion won ($15 million) for illegally collecting sensitive personal information from Facebook users, including data about their political views and sexual orientation, and sharing it with thousands of advertisers.
It was the latest in a series of penalties against Meta by South Korean authorities in recent years as they increase their scrutiny of how the company, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, handles private information.
Following a four-year investigation, South Korea's Personal Information Protection Commission concluded that Meta unlawfully collected sensitive information about around 980,000 Facebook users, including their religion, political views and whether they were in same-sex unions, from July 2018 to March 2022.
It said the company shared the data with around 4,000 advertisers.
South Korea's privacy law provides strict protection for information related to personal beliefs, political views and sexual behavior, and bars companies from processing or using such data without the specific consent of the person involved.
The commission said Meta amassed sensitive information by analyzing the pages the Facebook users liked or the advertisements they clicked on.
The company categorized ads to identify users interested in themes such as specific religions, same-sex and transgender issues, and issues related to North Korean escapees, said Lee Eun Jung, a director at the commission who led the investigation on Meta.
"While Meta collected this sensitive information and used it for individualized services, they made only vague mentions of this use in their data policy and did not obtain specific consent," Lee said.
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