The News
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta will face trial in a Federal Trade Commission antitrust lawsuit over the company’s acquisition of Instagram and Whatsapp, a judge ruled Wednesday.
The FTC sued Meta in 2020 during the first Trump administration, alleging the tech giant, then called Facebook, acted illegally to maintain its monopoly over social media when it bought Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion and Whatsapp in 2014 for $19 billion. The FTC alleged Meta overpaid for the apps.
Meta had argued that the case should be dismissed on grounds that the company does face competition from other apps like TikTok and X.
In his decision, the judge ruled Meta must stand trial for its acquisitions, but dismissed one of the FTC’s allegations — that Meta hampered third-party developers’ access to its platform — a win for the tech giant, Bloomberg reported.
Meta said in a statement that “the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp have been good for competition and consumers,” and that it “will review the opinion when it is filed.”
This is the latest in a “parade of major federal cases” aimed at limiting Big Tech, The New York Times wrote: Aside from Meta, Google, Amazon, and Apple are all under legal scrutiny.
Know More
Google, among the hardest hit, is currently awaiting a judgment that could see it being broken up, but that fate may be more remote under a second Donald Trump administration, Reuters wrote.
Trump’s return to the White House in January may bring changes to the US’ antitrust approach, although it is hard to predict he will do in practice, The Verge reported. His administration “could pursue more modest remedies, depending on who he appoints — and how Trump feels about a company like Google on any given day.”