Overview
- U.S. District Judge James Boasberg denied the FTC’s request to compel divestitures, finding the agency did not substantiate a current monopoly by Meta.
- The decision came in the long-running case over Meta’s purchases of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014, which regulators had cleared at the time.
- The FTC argued Meta bought the apps to unlawfully protect dominance and sought remedies up to unwinding the deals, bolstering its filings with market-share data from 2016 to 2020.
- Because the services are free, the FTC advanced a quality-of-service harm theory rather than pointing to higher consumer prices.
- Meta disputed the claims, citing strong competition from platforms like TikTok, and the government can appeal, a process that could take years.