In this week’s most serious monopoly, the important part of the defense of Mark Zuckerberg was almost irrelevant to the technology giants and was not related to Tiktok.
In a three -day testimony, the founder of the billionaire technology repeatedly said that the video platform owned by Chinese parents in the US Federal Court in Washington grew to become a huge competitor.
His rival’s oath had a goal. He was accused of breaking the US Federal Trade Commission allegedly maintaining illegal monopoly, and being accused of being more extensive than the commercial threat facing Zuckerberg’s business.
After losing the case, Meta may need to disassemble the $ 1.5TN group and spray the Instagram and whatsApp apps. Zuckerberg previously sweared to fight with the mat. Victory, and it would have won a decisive victory over a regulatory agency with a long technology.
The trial comes after Zuckerberg first failed to negotiate the procedure. According to a person who is familiar with this problem, the FTC demanded $ 3 billion in potential agreements. META made a low ball for $ 450 million, and then the regulator set a $ 18 billion floor and raised the proposal to $ 1 billion. The parties decided to move to court.
At the center of the FTC litigation is that META used a “systematic strategy” to remove competitors, including the acquisition of Rivals Instagram and Whatsapp in 2012 and 2014, for $ 1 billion and $ 1.9 billion, respectively.
FTC lawyers suggested that this week, Zuckerberg sees these initial applications as a threat, including an uncomfortable e -mail. Zuckerberg agreed that Instagram transactions could help “competitors neutral” in 2012, and META said that “M & A uses M & A to build a competitive moat in mobile and advertising.”
However, this tactic will be considered potentially illegal if the FTC can prove that the meta maintains monopoly. Some monopoly professionals argue that it will be more difficult to build. Zuckerberg and former meta -chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, emphasized the explosive growth of Tiktok and emphasized the service to more than 1 billion users worldwide.
Paul Swanson, the monopoly and competitor of Holland & Hart, said, “It is not a big thing they said and thought in the past, but there is not much confidence in whether the meta maintains monopoly.
“Zuckerberg and Sandberg worked a good job to explain why it is now. [that] Tiktok and Meta have a horses of each other and replace each other in most users’ minds. ”
In the monopoly problem, the FTC must prove that there is a consumer damage, which is generally a monopoly who raises the price. The agency claims that the meta service has lowered user experience due to the power of the platform instead of providing a free service. Feed lacks advertising and personal information protection.
The main task of the FTC is to persuade James Boasberg, the lead judge, that the meta is partially dominated by the partial acquisition.
A person who was first reported by the Wall Street Journal said that Meta’s low ball suggestion showed how weak the FTC was. The FTC refused to comment.
A spokesman for Dani Lever said, “We were not ashamed of explaining why FTC was a rational case that had to prove that the US 17 -year -old age was absurd. We know that Instagram is not competing with Tiktok. We are ready to win the trial.”
But some experts argue that Boasberg, who spoke a few words all week, can accommodate FTC’s claims.
Kenneth Dintzer, a partner of Crowell & Moring, said, “The court is clearly open to the possibility of the personal social networking market.
Zuckerberg rejected this concept in court and pointed out a group that rushes to develop a reel (short form of video) in response to Tiktok’s rapid rise. Tiktok’s proposal is probably, “Perhaps [been] Zuckerberg has been the most competitive threat to Instagram and Facebook over the past few years.
Metabos also pointed out the dramatic jump of the user, claiming that whatsApp and Instagram were acquired to accelerate growth.
The FTC argued that Zuckerberg is a bigger social network after Zuckerberg’s “the biggest competitive vector for us is to build a messaging app to communicate with the small groups and then to a broader social network.”
Zuckerberg taught Sandberg in the 2012 e -mail and taught the board game and taught the board game.[Facebook] The messenger did not hit whatsapp and the Instagram grew much faster than us and had to buy them for $ 1 billion. . . It is not to kill exactly. ”
“The chaotic part of the testimony of the mark is that he tries to contradict the statement 10 years ago as he considered it in real time 10 years ago.
Perhaps the most amazing evidence was in the form of the 2018 Zuckerberg email. He considered rotating the Instagram, which accurately quotes the threat of monopoly execution faced today.
As the “request to disassemble a large corporation”, he wrote, “We are unlikely to force the Instagram and WhatsApp in the next five to ten years.”
