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Tbh, if it was done outside the US/Canada, I'd say it could have been an independent decision. As others have said, outside of NA, all I hear is people complaining about the quality of Foursquare's data. ;)

That said...is anyone who actually thought about it really that surprised?

They are almost always being deceptive when they make claims of "independence", "nothing will change", etc. The truth is, most companies choose to maximize shareholder value/profits over other ethical constraints because C-level compensation is chained to the shareholder's interests as best as can be managed in most companies.

It would have been nice if Facebook was more like Buffer [e.g. Transparent, Honest], but does anyone ever really seeing a company like Buffer growing to even 5% of Facebook's current Market Cap [150 Billion]?

Deception works at scale. Politics have proved that quite well, unfortunately.