Meta Wins Antitrust Trial As Judge Denies That It’s A Monopoly

In Brief

After 5 years, Meta has emerged victorious from a U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) suit complete its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.

In an sentiment released Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg wrote that nan FTC did not beryllium that Meta was violating antitrust rule erstwhile it bought Instagram for $1 cardinal successful 2012, and WhatsApp for $19 cardinal successful 2014.

The FTC did negociate to aboveground grounds showing that Meta — past called Facebook — was concerned astir Instagram’s accelerated maturation and nan title it could pose.

“One measurement of looking astatine this is that what we’re really buying is time,” Mark Zuckerberg wrote successful February 2012, per soul Facebook emails that surfaced during nan trial. “Even if immoderate caller competitors springs [sic] up, buying Instagram, Path, Foursquare, etc. now will springiness america a twelvemonth aliases much to merge their dynamics earlier anyone tin get adjacent to their standard again.”

But Judge Boasberg was not ruling connected whether Meta had acted arsenic a monopoly backmost then, but rather, if it is presently a monopoly. Boasberg pointed to apps for illustration TikTok arsenic grounds that Meta has competition.

“The scenery that existed only 5 years ago, erstwhile nan Federal Trade Commission brought this antitrust suit has changed markedly,” Boasberg wrote successful his memorandum opinion. “While it erstwhile mightiness person made consciousness to partition apps into abstracted markets of societal networking and societal media, that wall has since surgery down.”

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