On Tuesday, a federal judge in Washington ruled that the Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions made by Facebook parent Meta Platforms (META) more than a decade ago didn’t violate U.S. antitrust law, thereby dealing a blow to the Federal Trade Commission, which brought the suit against the company.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled that Meta’s acquisitions didn’t create an illegal monopoly of the social media industry, and the U.S. agency failed to prove those allegations.
“With apps surging and receding, chasing one craze and moving on from others, and adding new features with each passing year, the FTC has understandably struggled to fix the boundaries of Meta’s product market,” Judge Boasberg said in his verdict.
“Whether or not Meta enjoyed monopoly power in the past, though, the agency must show that it continues to hold such power now. The court’s verdict today determines that the FTC has not done so.”
During the trial, the FTC alleged that Meta purchased the messaging and the photo-sharing platforms rather than releasing in-house apps to compete with them.
Those acquisitions reinforced Meta’s monopoly in the social networking segment focused on connections between friends and family, the U.S. agency claimed.