ByZachary Folk,
Forbes Staff.
A federal judge ruled that Meta does not hold a monopoly over social networking after purchasing Instagram and WhatsApp in 2012 and 2014, ending a lengthy case brought by the Federal Trade Commission as part of a series of lawsuits against big tech companies.
In a ruling on Tuesday, District Court Judge James Boasberg ruled that the FTC did not prove that Meta holds a monopoly on “personal social networking.”
The suit, which was first brought by the FTC in 2020 during the first Trump administration, argued that Meta’s move to purchase photo sharing app Instagram in 2012 and messaging service WhatsApp in 2014 were anticompetitive moves designed to buy out their competition.
