The lawsuit echoes issues progressive critics have said the FTC should have raised in Facebook’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp roughly a decade ago.
for illegal monopolization of the personal social networking market, in which the agency charges that Meta used those two acquisitions to shut down nascent competitors to increase its own dominance. Meta previously sought for that lawsuit to be dismissed, though it isWhen the monopolization case was first filed in 2020, Facebook's chief counselthe FTC was looking for a"do-over" of its original reviews of the Instagram and WhatsApp mergers, which happened years earlier.
While federal antitrust agencies reserve their right to sue to unwind an acquisition that they didn't previously try to stop, it's generally much harder to break apart two merged entities than prevent them from combining in the first place. In its press release, the FTC said if Meta were to create a"virtual reality dedicated fitness app market" on its own, it would increase consumer choice and innovation. But it added that buying an existing app could dampen such innovation.
If Meta is allowed to buy Within, the agency continued, competition in the VR-dedicated fitness app market will decay, because just"the mere possibility of Meta's entry has likely influenced competition" in the market. The agency, which is made up of two Republicans and three Democrats including Chair Lina Khan, voted 3-2 to file the lawsuit in a federal court in California. The FTC's press release did not break down the vote, but Republican Commissioner Christine WilsonThe lawsuit could represent one of the first major events of Khan's leadership at the commission. The progressive tech critic was
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