As reported by the BBC, the American body supervising the competition and consumers claims that The finish, which was already the owner of Facebook, bought Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 to eliminate competition. As a result, Marek Zuckerberg was supposed to effectively secure a monopoly.
See also: Former Facebook director: Meta collaborated with China over censorship
The Federal Trade Commission (Federal Trade Commission) reviewed and approved these acquisitions, but undertook to monitor their results. If FTC wins the case, it may force Marek Zuckerberg to sell both Instagram and WhatsApp.
Meta previously stated that she was some winning, and experts said the BBC that it would probably argue that Instagram users had better experiences since its takeover.
“Argument [FTC] It is that the takeover of Instagram was a way to neutralize the growing threat of competitive to Facebook, “says Rebecca Haw Allensworth, Antimonopoly Professor at Vanderbilt Law School, whose opinion is cited by the BBC.
The finish will have to sell Instagram?
The finish line in a statement that BBCX has received said that evidence in the process “will show what every 17-year-old in the world knows: Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp compete with China Tiktok, YouTube, X, Issage and many others.”
The FTC case against the meta was submitted during the first administration of the US President Donald Trumpbut – as BBC explains – there is a risk that it will be politicized during its second term. According to “Wall Street Journal”, Zuckerberg personally lobbyed to Trump to withdraw the case.
The Federal Trade Commission is considered a key antitrust body. In recent years, she returned hundreds of millions of dollars to victims of fraud, and also adopted provisions prohibiting junk fees and subscription traps.
See also: The European Commission is preparing penalties for Apple and Meta. “The term is over”
As BBC notes, The FTC case against the meta begins when another important antitrust case – the USA against Google – enters the so -called phase of remedies. The Department of Justice won the first phase of this case last summer, when Judge Amit Mehta decided that Google has a monopoly on online search, with a market share of about 90 percent.
