Although the FTC’s complaint was dismissed, another complaint against the tech giant could be refiled by the government agency.
“These allegations—which do not even provide an estimated actual figure or range for Facebook’s market share at any point over the past ten years—ultimately fall short of plausibly establishing that Facebook holds market power,” said U.S. District Judge James Boasberg.
He also dismissed a separate lawsuit filed by a group of state attorneys general that complained of Facebook’s “monopoly power.” The FTC asserted Facebook used a “systematic strategy” against its competitors.
For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below:
Boasberg dealt a significant blow to attempts by regulators to rein in tech giants.
He ruled Monday that the lawsuits didn’t provide enough evidence to prove that Facebook was a monopoly.
The U.S. government and 48 states and districts sued Facebook in December 2020, accusing the tech giant of abusing its market power in social networking to crush smaller competitors and seeking remedies that could include a forced spinoff of the social network’s Instagram and WhatsApp messaging services.
The FTC had alleged Facebook engaged in “a systematic strategy” to eliminate its competition, including by purchasing smaller up-and-coming rivals like Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014. New York Attorney General Letitia James said when filing the suit that Facebook “used its monopoly power to crush smaller rivals and snuff out competition, all at the expense of everyday users.”
