Meta had ‘monopoly power’ after buying rival apps, FTC says

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The US Federal Trade Commission told a court at the beginning of a blockbuster trial on Monday that could compel $ 1.5TN Tech Giant’s break-up.

This case is expected to give the Trump administration’s position on the negative policy in front of the Washington District Court – and its hunger is hungry Great technologyThe

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was in court on Monday. He appeared in a dark suit and tie instead of casual shirt and big gold chain, which he spore more frequently.

FTC lawyer Daniel Mathson argued in his opening statement that Meet Steamide competition from Instagram and WhatsApp bought them in 2012 and 2014 respectively for $ 1 billion and 19 billion, respectively.

According to the controller’s analysis, Mathson argued that Mathson then created “exclusive power” with 85 percent of the market shares. He quoted the internal communication of the meta boss.

Zuckerberg wrote in an email of 20, “If Instagram is kicking donkeys on Mobile or Google is buying them, they can easily add their service pieces that we can copy what we are doing now,” Zuckerberg wrote in an email of 20, which Mathson presented as proof.

It may be “true about almost any app”, Zuckerberg responded to the court.

“Instagram could hurt us meaningfully” and “We were quite a threat to us”, he said in an email presented as proof in an email in 2002 FTC His intentions to resort to a “purchase-bori” strategy.

Prior to the WhatsApp deal, Zuckerberg warned at 20 that the messaging app could go to the market like the United States where SMS is still primer[y] The platform ”, James Bosberg, the district judge is overseeing the case, heard.

Meta knew that transactions would allow it to create a “childhood” to protect it from other challengers, Mathson said.

If convicted, the Meta may be forced to open the acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram depending on the remedy for FTC in the second phase of the trial.

This trial comes as Zuckerberg – who once banned Donald Trump from Facebook – he tried to get closer to the US President, relaxed to the White House and relaxed the Meta content policy.

Earlier this month, Zuckerberg seems to have planned to protect a settlement between Meta and FTC to avoid any trial.

The court also identified the first significant test for the application of large technology under Trump’s FTC chair Andrew Ferguson in the courtroom on Monday. He has cleared the plan to crack the industry, which he complained of censorship.

Zuckerberg himself took this position on Monday afternoon, while former Meta Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and Tikatok, SNAP and rival leaders on Google’s YouTube are also expected to testify.

Mathson argued that Meta’s competitive anti -behaviors had damaged customers, pointing to “great growth” advertisements on Facebook and Instagram as well as Meta’s “Failure of Significant Privacy over time.”

He also accused Meta of trying to prevent Instagram rapid growth in 2018, according to a confidential email written by Zuckerberg and in court.

Meta Boss said about Instagram in 2002, “I will only continue it. Insurance.”

Matter lawyer Mark Hansen says the company has no “monopoly” and has never “insulating” from the competition.

Hansen said the “confused” case “made the cricketing antitrust of this country turned them into their limits”, Hansen said.

The Meta lawyer also argued that the market shares presented by the FTC were that when Tiktok and YouTube were taken into consideration, the spending time spent on Meta’s applications was less than 30 percent.

The argument tikatok did not compete with Instagram “no meaning”, adding Hansen, while the Tickets were temporarily dark in January, pointing to users to the jump.

Meta has improved the quality of Instagram and WhatsApp, Hansen has added, the services have been dramatically imposed on the user’s numbers since their acquisition.

Antitist experts have argued that the FTC has faced a festive battle in the case, Judge Boyasberg initially rejected the first complaint that it was “legal inadequate” before receiving a reflide case in 2022.

Meta (then Facebook) sued more than four years ago when the controller first became Trump’s first president.