Meta Platforms won a key court ruling that the company’s acquisitions of the photo-sharing app Instagram and messaging service WhatsApp don’t violate U.S. antitrust law, a blow to the federal government that has sought to break up the company for the past five years.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington said the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) failed to prove the deals allowed the tech giant to illegally monopolize the social networking market.
“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,” the judge wrote. “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.”
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