Rejected the FTC’s attempt to split Instagram from Facebook

A few days ago a United States district court dismissed the FTC’s antitrust lawsuit against Facebook. The lawsuit, filed late last year, tried to cancel the acquisitions Facebook’s Instagram And Whatsapp. The judge also dismissed one associated cause presented by a group of state attorneys general. Here are the details.

FTC’s lawsuit against Facebook is dismissed

In its initial complaint, the FTC argued that Facebook violated federal antitrust laws by purchasing a would-be competitor in the social media marketplace. However, in his decision to dismiss the complaint, the judge James E. Boasberg wrote that the FTC offered insufficient evidence for its central claim: that is, that Facebook exercises a monopoly power.

“The FTC has failed to state enough facts to plausibly establish a necessary element of all of its Section 2 claims. That is, Facebook has monopoly power in the Personal Social Networking (PSN) services market,” he said. written Boasberg. The complaint contains nothing on this point, except the bare assertion that the company had and still has a “dominant share of this market (over 60%)”.

Boasberg also has rejected requests against Facebook’s interoperability restrictionsfinding that the policies were implemented too long ago to be subject to action by the FTC.

The case of the attorneys general

The ruling also hit a anti-monopoly parallel case against Facebook presented by a coalition of state attorneys general. Most state attorneys general signed a lawsuit against Facebook in December. The allegations are similar to the FTC case but the judge also dismissed this case.

Plus Judge Boasberg left room for the FTC to review his case. The commission has until July 29 to file a new complaint which outlines his argument on Facebook’s market dominance. Finally the judge clarified that the FTC case it was not influenced by civil doctrine who condemned the state attorneys general.

We just have to wait and observe how the story will develop further.