Metoseatle Metoseatle Facebook platforms are in front of a high rate process in Washington, starting on Monday about the claims that he built an illegal monopoly of social media, spending billions of dollars on acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp, in the event that American organs of antitrust bodies are trying to give up the transaction.
The acquisitions over ten years ago were aimed at eliminating competitors who could threaten Facebook status as a social platform for users to connect with friends and family, says the Federal US Trade Commission. She filed the case in 2020 during the first term of the US President Donald Trump.
FTC tries to force the meta to restructure or sell some of its activities. This means that if the commission succeeds, Instagram and WhatsApp can be pulled out of the finish to become their own entities again.
On Sunday, in the blog post, Meta legal director, Jennifer Newstead, called a poor and repelling matter of technological investments.
“It is absurd that FTC is trying to break the great American company at the same time, and the administration is trying to save the Chinese Tiktok,” she was
The case is an existential threat to the finish, which, according to some estimates, earns about half of its American advertising revenues on Instagram, and also gives the audience the first real measure of how definitely the new Trump administration will continue the promises of accepting large technology.
The metal regularly has been observing Trump since its elections, Nixing Content moderation Republicans were censorship and transferring USD 1 million to the inauguration of Trump. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta Director, has also visited the White House many times in recent weeks.
US President Donald Trump raised a record number of corporate donations to his inauguration, of which millions were transferred by directors of main technology companies such as Google, Apple, Amazon and Meta. Andrew Chang explains the change in Trump's relationship with these industry leaders from the first term and the symbolism of their proximity to the president. Images provided by Getty Images, Reuters and Canadian Press.
“FTC Trump-Vance cannot be more ready for this process,” said FTC spokesman Joe Simonson, adding: “We are blessed with one of the most diligent and intelligent lawyers in the country who work around the clock.”
WhatsApp and Instagram helped Facebook to transfer their activities from desktop computers to mobile devices and remain popular among younger generations as rivals, such as Snapchat (which he also tried, but could not be bought) and a thicket appeared.
However, FTC has a narrow definition of a competitive meta market, excluding companies such as Tiktok, YouTube and Apple Service from watching rivals on Instagram and WhatsApp.
“FTC already has a difficult task, regardless of whether it looks at 10 years ago or five years ago or today, trying to define the market we are talking about in a sufficiently narrow way to show that the meta has a lot of power in this market,” said Paul Swanson, antitrust lawyer for Holland & Hart.
“I think that the challenge has become more difficult over the years and we see more and more potential competitors on social spaces.”
Zuckerberg expected testimony
Zuckerberg is expected to testify at the hearing, where he will have to question e-mails in which he proposed to acquire an application for sharing Instagram photos as a way to neutralize a potential competitor on Facebook, and expressed fears that the encrypted WhatsApp message may grow into a social network.
Meta argued in court documents that his purchase of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 brought benefits to users, and the earlier statements of Zuckerberg are no longer relevant among the fierce competition from Bytedance's Tiktok, Google YouTube and Apple Apple.
How users spend time on social media and whether the services are interchangeable will be the basis of the case. According to court files, META indicates an increase in movement on Instagram and Facebook during a short closure of Tiktok in the United States in January as proof of competition.
FTC claims that the meta has a monopoly on platforms used to share with friends and family, where its main competitors in the United States are Snapchat and Mewe, a small, privacy -oriented application of social media launched in 2016.
Platforms in which users transmit content to strangers based on common interests, such as X, Tiktok, YouTube and Reddit, are not interchangeable, FTC argued.
US District Judge James Boasberg said in the ruling in November that although FTC has sufficient evidence to go ahead, the agency “stands in the face of difficult questions about whether its claims can remain in the crucible of the trial.”
The process is to develop until July. If FTC wins, on the second process he would have to prove that funds such as forcing Meta for Sale Instagram or WhatsApp will restore competition.
Instagram particularly valuable for the finish
In particular, the loss of Instagram could be catastrophic for the meta results.
While the finish line does not release data on revenues specific to the application, in December it is forecasted that the company dealing with advertising research emanarketer forecasts that Instagram will generate $ 37.13 billion this year, which is just over half of the revenues from advertising in the USA.
According to the emanarketer, Instagram also generates greater revenues on the user than any other social platform, including Facebook.
Burner front24:43A case against Google
The second of the two main antitrust cases against Google ended this week. At the beginning of this year, the judge stated that the company has an illegal monopoly on the Internet search market. Now the Department of Justice of the United States is arguing about the same on online advertising. All this is part of a serious pushing of antitrust disputes against technology companies by the US government – Apple, Amazon and Meta faces similar cases. What is behind this pressure to break these companies now? Did the proposed remedies such as breaking them really matter? And will the rush to survive the transition to the second presidency of Trump? Paris Marx – author of the technology bulletin, disconnecting and the host of podcast technology will not save us – he breaks everything. In the case of transcripts, Front Burner can be found at: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts (https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts)
Until now, WhatsApp has only contributed to the complete revenue of the finish line, but this is the company's largest application in terms of everyday users and increases efforts to earn money on tools such as chatbots. Zuckerberg said that such services “Business News” will probably drive another wave of company development.
The case is one of the five in which FTC and the Department of Justice are accused of large technology companies of maintaining illegal monopolies.
Amazon and Apple are sued, and Google Alphabet is in the face of two processes, including one, in which the process will start next week on the government's offer of forcing Google to sell its chrome browser.