On Monday, the Federal Commercial Commission accused Meta of creating a monopoly that crushed the competition by purchasing the starting businesses that stood in the way and started an orientation antitrust court that could dismantle the realm of social media that transformed the world.
In a wrapped courtroom at the US District Court in the Columbia district, FTC launched its first antitrust court under Trump’s administration by arguing that the meta illegally strengthened the monopoly in social networks by obtaining Instagram and WhatsApp when it is small starting companies. These actions were part of the “Buy-or-Buys” strategy, FTC said.
The government said the purchases eventually joined the strength of the meta and deprived consumers with other possibilities of social networks and competition.
“American public policy takes more than 100 years that companies have to compete if they want to succeed,” said Daniel Mathes, FTC Main Court in this case, in their opening notes. “The reason we are here is that the meta interrupted the agreement.”
“They decided that the competition was too hard and it would be easier to buy their opponents than to compete with them,” he added.
The Trial-Federal Commercial Commission v. Meta Platform-Platform presents the most subsequent threat to the business empire of Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of the company. If the government succeeded, the FTC would most likely ask Meta to sell Instagram and WhatsApp, which could shift the way Silicon Valley is doing business and changes a long formula of large technology companies that set off younger rivals.
Nevertheless, legal experts warned that it could be difficult for FTC. This is because the government must prove something unknowable: that a meta, previously known as Facebook, would not achieve the same success without acquisitions. It is also very rare to try to release merger approved years ago, legal experts said.
“One of the most difficult things for the antitrust laws we need to deal with is when industry leaders buy small potential competitors,” said Gene Kimmelman, former head of the Ministry of Justice of Obama’s administration. Meta, he added, “He bought many things that either did not throw or integrated. How does Instagram and WhatsApp differ?”
Efforts continues in the year of Bipartisan Efforts to reduce the enormous power that a handful of technology companies over trade, the exchange of ideas, entertainment and political discourse has. Despite the experiments of the technological executives, the chairman of Trump, his antitrust denominators, signaled that they would continue the course.
The FTC case against META is the third main technical antitrust court that has been brought to court in the last two years. Last year, he won his antitrust case against Google to monopolize Internet search. The federal judge is ready to hear the arguments of corrective measures, including potential disintegration, next week. It also passed a separate lawsuit against Google for the monopolization of advertising technology, which is still being decided by the federal judge.
The Ministry of Justice also sued Apple and FTC sued Amazon and accused society of violating antitrust. These exams are expected to start next year.
The case against META could affect its 3.5 billion users who log on average to Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp several times a day for messages, shopping and text messages. In recent years, Instagram and WhatsApp have attracted more users because Facebook, the flagship of the meta, has stopped growing.
FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson was in the courtroom to listen to the government’s opening statement. Also attended by Chief Legal Director of Meta, Jennifer Newstead and Joel Kaplan, Chief Director of Global Affairs.
The chairman of the case of Judge James Boasberg, 62, the main judge at the Federal Court. It is already in the National Center of attention to the rejection of Trump’s efforts to use a strong war status to the summary deport of Venezuelan migrants, which considered members of the violent street gang.
Judge Boasberg said he was never a meta app, but was familiar with Facebook Live, which was listed in criminal proceedings.
As it is expected to be eight weeks of process, the government and the meta are expected to tell the competitive version of the 20 -year growth story of the company.
The FTC argument depends on section 2 of the antimonopoleic law of Sherman from 1890, which prohibits the company to maintain monopoly through anti -pettive practices.
FTC accused Facebook, as the company was known before, trying to create a mobile application and feared that Instagram would quickly overcome it in popularity. The company overparted when it bought Instagram for $ 1 billion in 2012, FTC argued.
In 2014, as WhatsApp grew, Meta offered a company of $ 19 billion – also far beyond its market value, the government said.
FTC plans to emphasize the paper test with e-mails among META managers, along with other evidence, to say that the company has purchased start-up businesses because they were threats.
In his introductory notes, Mr. Matheson mentioned documents, including what he described as e -mail with “smoking” 2012 Mr. Zuckerberg about the rise of Instagram. In E -mail, Mr. Zuckerberg described the meaning of “neutralize a potential competitor”.
Years after the acquisition Mr. Zuckerberg wrote in the internal e -mail in 2018 that the success of Instagram risked the cannibalizing users in the flagship on Facebook, said Matheson. This resulted in a decision on Instagram unnecessary in Facebook and reduce the load on Instagram ads.
There is “a real chance that we can cause a more engaging and more profitable product to be replaced by a less engaging and less profitable product,” Zuckerberg wrote in -mail to managers.
The FTC attorney said Meta had bought WhatsApp to prevent it from being acquired by competitors such as Google who tried to use the message to start a competitive social network. The acquisition aimed to build a “ditch” around the monopoly of society in social networks, said Mr. Matheson.
On the center of the court proceedings there are different definitions of the social network market. On Monday, FTC claimed that Mr. Zuckerberg told users in 2006 that Facebook was used to connect “real friends”. FTC claimed that the main competition for Facebook and Instagram is Snapchat.
Meta did not agree to face competition from Tiktok, LinkedIn, YouTube and other platforms that distract attention from Facebook and Instagram.
The government is ready to call witnesses from meta and competitors, risk capitalists, economists and managers of the media industry. Mr. Zuckerberg was expected to be the first witness on Monday. FTC said that former operating director Sheryl Sandberg and Kevin Systrom, co -founder of Instagram, will testify this week.
