Meta prevails in historic FTC antitrust case, won’t have to break off WhatsApp, Instagram
By BARBARA ORTUTAY AP Device Writer SAN FRANCISCO AP Meta has prevailed over an existential challenge to its business that could have forced the tech giant to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp after a judge ruled that the company does not hold a monopoly in social networking Related Articles Wall Street drops again as Nvidia bitcoin and other stars keep swinging Cloudflare outage impacts thousands disrupts transit systems ChatGPT X and more Nine in Denver area homes lost value in the past year Zillow reports Slowing international migration could put the brakes on Colorado advance New coalition forms to keep Colorado an aerospace defense leader U S District Judge James Boasberg issued his ruling Tuesday after the historic antitrust trial wrapped up in late May His decision follows two separate rulings that branded Google an illegal monopoly in both search and online advertising dealing yet another regulatory blow to the tech industry that for years enjoyed nearly unbridled increase The Federal Agreement Commission continues to insist that Meta competes with the same old rivals it has for the last decade that the company holds a monopoly among that small set and that it maintained that monopoly through anticompetitive acquisitions Boasberg wrote in his ruling Whether or not Meta enjoyed monopoly power in the past though the agency must show that it continues to hold such power now The Court s verdict nowadays determines that the FTC has not done so Meta the FTC had argued has maintained a monopoly by pursuing CEO Mark Zuckerberg s strategy expressed in It is better to buy than compete True to that maxim Facebook has systematically tracked promising rivals and acquired companies that it viewed as serious competitive threats During his April testimony Zuckerberg pushed back against the FTC s contention that Facebook bought Instagram to neutralize a threat In his line of questioning FTC attorney Daniel Matheson repeatedly brought up emails numerous of them more than a decade old written by Zuckerberg and his associates before and after the acquisition of Instagram While acknowledging the documents Zuckerberg has often sought to downplay the contents saying he wrote them in the early stages of considering the acquisition and that what he wrote at the time didn t capture the full scope of his interest in the company The FTC s complaint reported Facebook also enacted policies designed to make it complicated for smaller rivals to enter the domain and neutralize perceived competitive threats just as the world shifted its attention to mobile devices from desktop computers The social media landscape has changed so much since the FTC filed its lawsuit in Boasberg wrote that each time the court examined Meta s apps and competition they changed Two opinions to dismiss the scenario filed in and didn t even mention popular social video platform TikTok In the modern day it holds center stage as Meta s fiercest rival Quoting the Greek philosopher Heraclitus that no man can ever step into the same river twice Boasberg disclosed the same is true for the online world of social media as well The landscape that existed only five years ago when the Federal Transaction Commission brought this antitrust suit has changed markedly While it once might have made sense to partition apps into separate markets of social networking and social media that wall has since broken down he wrote Facebook bought Instagram then a scrappy photo-sharing app with no ads and a small cult following in The billion cash and stock purchase price was eye-popping at the time though the deal s value fell to million after Facebook s stock price dipped following its initial population offering in May Instagram was the first company Facebook bought and kept running as a separate app Up until then Facebook was known for smaller acqui-hires a type of popular Silicon Valley deal in which a company purchases a startup as a way to hire its talented workers then shuts the acquired company down Two years later it did it again with the messaging app WhatsApp which it purchased for billion WhatsApp and Instagram helped Facebook move its business from desktop computers to mobile devices and to remain popular with younger generations as rivals like Snapchat which it also tried but failed to buy and TikTok emerged However the FTC has a narrow definition of Meta s competitive sector excluding companies like TikTok YouTube and Apple s messaging system from being considered rivals to Instagram and WhatsApp Meta did not right away respond to a message for comment
