“Meta will appear before the antitrust court over the purchase of Instagram and WhatsApp The US Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Meta for monopolizing the social network market. A judge rejected Meta’s motion to dismiss the case, accusing the company of stifling competition through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.”, — write on: unn.ua
Details
Judge James Boasberg largely rejected Meta’s request to dismiss a case filed against Facebook in 2020 during the Trump administration, arguing that the company acted illegally to maintain its monopoly on the social network.
Meta, then known as Facebook, overpaid for Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 to fend off nascent threats rather than compete on its own in the mobile ecosystem, the FTC alleged.
Boasberg upheld that statement, but rejected the FTC’s claim that Facebook is strengthening its dominance by limiting third-party app developers’ access to the platform unless they agree not to compete with its core services.
“We are confident that the evidence in court will show that the acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp was beneficial to competition and consumers,” a Meta spokesperson said on Wednesday.
FTC representative Douglas Farrar said the case, filed under the Trump administration and refined under Biden, “is a bipartisan effort to limit Meta’s monopoly power and restore competition to ensure freedom and innovation in the social networking ecosystem.”
In court, Meta will not be allowed to argue that the acquisition of WhatsApp increased competition by strengthening its position against Apple and Google, Boasberg ruled.
A trial date has not been set in the case.
Addition
Meta urged the judge to throw out the entire case, saying it was based on too narrow a view of social media markets and failed to take into account competition from ByteDance’s TikTok, YouTube, Google’s X and Microsoft’s LinkedIn.
The case is one of five high-profile lawsuits in which antitrust regulators from the FTC and the US Department of Justice are suing big tech.
Amazon.com Inc and Apple are both on trial, while Alphabet’s Google faces two lawsuits, including one in which a judge recently ruled that the company illegally hindered competition among search engines.