Meta “Monopoly Power” was after purchasing competing applications, FTC says

Digest opened free editor

Rola Khaleda, FT editor, chooses her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.

The US Federal Trade Committee said on Monday at the beginning of a wonderful trial that could be forced to disintegrate the 1.5 Trioon technology giant that the US Federal Trade Committee on Monday at the beginning of a wonderful trial could be forced to break the 1.5 TRITEN technology that the Instagram and WhatsApp have helped to give it the “monopoly power”.

It is expected that the case will be presented before a local court in Washington. Big technology.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was on Monday. He appeared in a dark suit and tie instead of an unofficial shirt and a large golden chain he performed frequently.

Daniel Matthesson, FTC’s lawyer, argued in his opening statement Dead A respectable competition from Instagram and WhatsApp by buying it in 2012 and 2014 for a billion dollars and $ 19 billion, respectively.

Mattison has argued that Meta has since built “Monopoly Power”, with a market share of 85 percent while spending it in its applications, according to the organizer analysis. He cited internal communications from the definition trainer.

“If Instagram continues to kick the donkey on the mobile phone or if Google purchases them, then they can easily add parts of their service that we are copying what we are doing now,” Zuckerberg wrote in an email for 2011, which Matthenson provided as a guide.

This may be “correct about almost any application”, Zuckerberg answered in court.

He said in a 2012 email message that was presented as a guide before FTC From his intentions to adopt a “purchase or pry” strategy.

Before the WhatsApp deal, Zuckerberg warned in 2013 that the messaging application could “raise markets like the United States where SMS is still the PRIMAR (Y) platform”, and James Boasberg, the provincial judge who supervises the case ,.

Mathson said that transactions knew that transactions would allow them to build a “trench” that he protects from other competitors.

If convicted, Meta can be forced to relax with WhatsApp and Instagram, depending on the treatments that FTC requested in the second stage of the trial.

The trial comes at a time when Zuckerberg – who once banned Donald Trump from Facebook – sought to approach the American president, and regularly visit the bases of Meta content policy.

Earlier this month, Zuckerberg seems to have pressed a settlement between Meta and FTC to avoid experiment.

The court case also represents the first important test for enforcement of the great technology during the era of Andrew Ferguson, Chairman of the Trump Federal Trade Committee, who was in the courtroom on Monday. He explained his plan to give up the industry, which he accused of censorship.

Zuckerberg took the same situation on Monday afternoon, while Sherrill Sandberg, the former chief operational officer in Mita, is expected to witness his witness to Tiktok, Snap and Google Youtube.

Mattison has argued that Meta’s competing behavior of the competition has affected consumers, pointing to the advertisement “heavily” on Facebook and Instagram, as well as “important privacy failures in Meta over time.”

Meta was also accused of trying to prevent the fast Instagram growth to avoid “network collapse” on Facebook, according to a secret email written by Zuckerberg in 2018 and submitted to the court.

“I will keep him running. Insurance,” said Meta’s head on Instagram in 2012.

Mita Mark Hansen’s lawyer said the company “has no monopoly” and was never “isolated” from the competition.

Hansen said that the “misleading” lawsuit informed the anti -monopoly precedents in this country to the maximum.

Meta’s lawyer also opposed the FTC market share, saying that the Meta share of time spent its applications has decreased to less than 30 percent when Tiktok and YouTube were taken into account.

Hansen added that the argument does not compete with Instagram “meaningless”, noting the jumps in Facebook and Instagram users when Tiktok became temporary dark in January.

Hansen added that Meta has improved Instagram quality and WhatsApp quality, which has greatly prompted user numbers since their own acquisitions while maintaining free services.

Anti -monopoly experts argued that FTC is facing an arduous battle in the case, given that Judge Boasberg initially rejected a first complaint on the basis that it is “legally insufficient” before accepting the case of reformulation in 2022.

The organizer filed a lawsuit against Mita (then Facebook) for more than four years, during the first Trump presidency.