FTC tries to un-Zuck Meta's grip on the market by dragging it back to court
Artist formerly known as Facebook can’t escape the legal-verse
The Federal Trade Commission has doubled down on its belief that Meta maintained a monopoly of social networking by anticompetitive conduct, appealing last year’s district court victory for Zuck and co.
The FTC first brought its case back in December 2020, alleging “the company is illegally maintaining its personal social networking monopoly through a years-long course of anticompetitive conduct.”
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US watchdog pokes Facebook a second time: Meta faces fresh monopoly lawsuit
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That “conduct” included snapping up potential rivals such as Instagram and WhatsApp, as well as imposing “anticompetitive conditions on software developers.” At the time, the FTC demanded divestitures of assets, including those acquisitions, and removing the “anticompetitive conditions” on devs.
However last November, district judge James Boasberg ruled that “Meta holds no monopoly in the relevant market,” citing a constantly changing social media ecosystem and noted that Meta’s market share “seems to be shrinking.”
Related Knowledge Center: The Meta-FTC trial
The Federal Trade Commission charges that Meta monopolized social networking via Facebook’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. The trial concluded in May and now awaits a judge’s opinion in the U.S. District Court for D.C. The case is being closely watched as other antitrust lawsuits target Google and Apple.
Media and the law | Social media