Twitter seems to have raised some eyebrows at the Federal Trade Commission.
Business Insider reports Thursday that the FTC is "actively investigating Twitter" and its relationship with app developers that build applications people use to view and post tweets on their desktop computers and mobile devices.
The Wall Street Journal says the company is UberMedia, a Twitter app developer that some consider to be a potential Twitter challenger with its own programs.
Neither Twitter or the FTC have offered comment yet, but the WSJ suggests that the FTC might be looking for signs of "anticompetitive behavior":
The FTC routinely looks at the behavior of companies to determine whether they are involved in anticompetitive behavior, often after receiving allegations from rivals. Often the reviews don't result in any legal action or penalty against the companies.
Twitter's recent TweetDeck buyout seems to be a key piece of the backstory in this investigation. Business Insider suggests that UberMedia and Twitter have encountered skirmishes in the past, where Twitter suspended UberMedia's Twitter apps briefly. UberMedia then had plans to buy TweetDeck, but Twitter beat them to the chase.
UberMedia's representative told BI that the FTC has requested information from them, and that they intend to cooperate with that request.
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Nidhi Subbaraman writes about technology and science at msnbc.com. Find her on Twitter and join our conversation on Facebook.
