Meta emerges victorious in FTC lawsuit over Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions

Meta appeared to be victorious on Tuesday in a U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lawsuit filed five years ago over its purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg, in an opinion released, wrote that the FTC did not prove that Meta was violating antitrust law when it bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012, and WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014.

The FTC managed to surface evidence showing that Meta — then known as Facebook — was concerned about Instagram’s rapid growth and the potential competition it could pose.

Mark Zuckerberg’s perspective, revealed in internal Facebook emails during the trial, was that acquiring companies like Instagram, Path, and Foursquare essentially bought Facebook valuable time.

In February 2012, he wrote, “One way of looking at this is that what we’re really buying is time. Even if some new competitors spring [sic] up, buying Instagram, Path, Foursquare, etc., now will give us a year or more to integrate their dynamics before anyone can get close to their scale again.”

However, Judge Boasberg was not ruling on whether Meta had served as a monopoly in the past, but rather, if it is currently a monopoly. Boasberg indicated that apps like TikTok are proof that Meta has competition.

Boasberg, in his memorandum opinion, observed a significant shift in the competitive environment compared to five years ago when the Federal Trade Commission initiated the antitrust suit. He stated, “The landscape that existed only five years ago when the Federal Trade Commission brought this antitrust suit has changed markedly.”

He concluded that the rationale for separating apps into distinct markets—social networking and social media—no longer holds true because that distinction has “since broken down.”