Andre Yoskowitz
30 Jun 2011 16:13
According to BI, the FTC is investigating into Twitter and how it deals with the many companies that build clients, services and apps for the platform.
The company began rolling out "official" services for its platform last year, getting into an area that was dominated by third-party apps like TweetDeck, TwitPic and bit.ly.
Nowadays, the official Twitter client is dominant, and the company has purchased up rival clients like TweetDeck, while shutting down others for various "offenses." The company also banned third-part ad services and fully redesigned the desktop version of Twitter so that video and photo sharing links did not re-direct away from the site.
The investigation may be a relief to entrepreneur Bill Gross, the founder of TweetUp. TweetUp was supposed to be a Twitter ad network, and Gross started buying up Twitter apps and services and even raised money to make a bid for TweetDeck, before Twitter outbid them. The company then shut down a few of Gross' apps for good measure.
Says Gross: "We have been contacted by the FTC and are in the process of responding to their requests."