The suit expected from the bipartisan coalition of states is headed by the New York attorney general, Letitia James. Three of the five-member commission are believed to be in favor of the move, including the chair, Joseph Simons, who is expected to leave the agency before the new Biden administration is sworn in, Politico reported.Ĭommissioners also have to decide where to file the suit: in federal court, which would leave the outcome to a judge or in the FTC, where the commission could ultimately decide. The FTC is expected to vote on a possible suit this week. Instagram’s co-founder also fretted that his company might be targeted for destruction by Zuckerberg if he refused the deal. “The businesses are nascent but the networks are established, the brands are already meaningful and if they grow to a large scale they could be disruptive to us,” Zuckerberg wrote. In another, the CEO said Instagram could hurt Facebook even if it did not become huge. In one 2012 email, made public through the House investigation, Zuckerberg highlighted how Instagram had an edge on mobile, an area where Facebook was falling behind.
The FTC investigation will build on findings from a separate inquiry conducted by the US House judiciary subcommittee, which released millions of documents that appeared to show that Facebook executives, including Zuckerberg, were concerned the apps could become competition, before aggressively pursuing them. Facebook executives have also argued their company has helped the apps grow.īut Facebook has come under greater scrutiny since the deals were done, and the FTC launched a new investigation into the potential antitrust violations in 2019.
The FTC cleared Facebook for the acquisitions when they occurred, and the company is hoping to leverage those approvals in mounting a defense. “WhatsApp is on a path to connect 1 billion people,” Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, said in a statement at the time. WhatsApp boasted more than 450 million monthly active users when it was acquired. At the time of its acquisition, Instagram had 30 million users, and, even though it was growing rapidly, it wasn’t yet making money.
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