Meta wins antitrust trial as judge denies that it’s a monopoly

After five years, Meta has emerged victorious from the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lawsuit over its acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp.

in one opinion released on tuesdayUS District Court Judge James Boasberg wrote that the FTC did not prove that Meta violated antitrust law when it bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014.

The FTC has managed to present evidence that shows that Meta – as Facebook was then called – was concerned about the rapid growth of Instagram and the competition it would bring.

According to internal Facebook emails revealed during the trial, Mark Zuckerberg wrote in February 2012, “One way to look at it is that what we’re really buying is time.” “Even if some new competitors emerge [sic] Now, buying Instagram, Path, Foursquare, etc. will give us a year or more to integrate their dynamics before anyone can get close to their scale again.

But Judge Boasberg was not ruling on whether Meta acted as a monopoly at the time, but rather on whether it is a monopoly in the present. Boasberg pointed to apps like TikTok as evidence that there is competition in the meta.

“The landscape that existed only five years ago, when the Federal Trade Commission brought this antitrust lawsuit, has clearly changed,” Boasberg said. wrote Opinion in his memorandum. “While it might once have made sense to separate apps into separate social networking and social media markets, that wall has since been torn down.”