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| Facebook defeats the Federal Trade Commission |
A federal court has dismissed the Federal Trade Commission's antitrust lawsuit against Facebook on the grounds that the agency provided no evidence that the social media giant had a monopoly on social media.
After Facebook took this step, the market cap closed at over $1,000 billion for the first time. After Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet, it was the fifth American company to achieve this feat.
District Judge James Boasberg in the District of Columbia said the Federal Trade Commission failed to defend Facebook's monopoly on the PSN market.
Boasberg writes that the FTC has not done enough to support its claim that Facebook owns 60% of the social media market.
The Federal Trade Commission has accused Facebook of buying start-ups like Instagram and blocking others from logging into Facebook's services in violation of the country's antitrust laws.
"We are pleased that these decisions acknowledge the shortcomings of the government's complaint against Facebook," the company said in a statement. A spokesperson for the agency said: The Federal Trade Commission is closely studying the judge's opinion and decide how to proceed. .
This move was a setback for the antitrust authorities, who applied for the dissolution of the company. However, although the judge dismissed the FTC's complaint, he generally did not dismiss the case, saying that the matter of the FTC's lawsuit could be settled if the agency submitted a revised complaint.
Bosberg's decision sparked new calls in Congress to update the country's antitrust laws. Representative Ken Parker wrote on Twitter: "The evolution of the case shows that antitrust reforms are urgently needed. Congress needs to provide antitrust authorities with additional tools and resources to help track down large tech companies engaging in anticompetitive behavior."
facebook win
Last week, the House Justice Committee passed a number of landmark laws. These laws will allow antitrust authorities to fire big tech companies.
Critics accuse Facebook of attacking small startups like Instagram early in the life cycle.
This buying strategy should help Facebook maintain its position as a leader in the social networking space.
In another ruling, Boasberg dismissed similar lawsuits against Facebook by dozens of state governments, saying they waited too long to challenge Facebook's acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram, which were acquired in 2014 and completed in 2012.
In the lawsuit, states accused Facebook of anti-competitive behavior. It does this by preventing competing applications from accessing its platform.
In addition, Boasberg writes, it is not illegal for the company to set guidelines to prevent interoperability with external applications.
He said Facebook may have violated antitrust laws in implementing its policies. But the operation came too late.