Apparently some folks in the federal government are taking too seriously the “Follow Me” message propped up by the Twitter bird.
According to an eye-opening report from the Wall Street Journal this morning, microblogging giant Twitter may be subjected to a Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust probe.
For the time being, not even sources typically in-the-know when it comes to Twitter have any clue as to the complete nature of the supposed investigation. But the WSJ says representatives of the FTC’s antitrust arm “have requested information from a company called UberMedia Inc.”
Although officials from Twitter are yet to publicly comment on the matter, one source from UberMedia has been quoted saying that his company will “fully comply with their request for information,” in regard to the FTC probe.
Despite a total lack of concrete evidence to confirm such speculation, there are rumors that Twitter may have drawn attention from the feds with its recent purchase of TweetDeck, a hot digital property that UnberMeda – a Twitter competitor – was supposedly also interested in.
Over the past year or so Twitter has looked to exert greater control over its user base as it has introduced advertising on its site. Twitter acquired some of those application companies, including TweetDeck, and developed its own services that rendered some other third-party companies obsolete.
It should be noted, however, that at the present time, the alleged review is “narrow” in scope and, according to a person familiar with the matter at the FTC, any investigation “won’t impact Twitter’s fledgling advertising business.”
