A judge, who had rejected, in June 2021, a first complaint filed by the FTC, considered a new one as admissible.
Le Monde with AFP
This is a bad news for the social networking giant. In the United States, a judge decided, Tuesday, January 11, that the American Competition Authority (Federal Trade Commission, FTC) can sue Facebook, which tried to invalidate accusations of dominant position.
This Federal Washington James James Boasberg, considered the new complaint filed by the FTC in August 2021, after its first issue was rejected by the same magistrate in June of the same year. The agency “had stumbled into the starting blocks” during his first attempt, and it “will probably meet obstacles to prove his accusations,” said the judge. But “the facts as presented this time (…) are stronger and detailed than before”.
His decision rejects Meta’s request (the mother’s mother of Facebook) to dismiss prosecution “without valid evidence”, according to the Californian company. Facebook advancing that the President of the FTC, Lina Khan, is not neutral. But James Boasberg replied that she did not have to be as a prosecutor.
One of the most threatening files for meta h2>
In his complaint, the FTC submits that the Mark Zuckerberg group has “illegally redeemed or buried new innovators when their popularity became an existential threat,” with reference to the Instagram application and WhatsApp messaging. It also argues that “personal social networks are a single and distinct online service”, and a controlled market at more than 65% per facebook, with its main platform and instagram – so a monopoly.
This is one of the most threatening files for Meta, regularly accused, like its neighbors of the Silicon Valley, to have accumulated much too much economic and social power.
Its reputation has further deteriorated in the fall of 2021 because of the revelations of an alert launcher, Frances Hugen, a former engineer who has had a lot of internal documents. She hammered in front of the American Congress and in European parliaments that the firm to some 3.5 billion monthly users passed “profit before the security” of its users.
“It is impossible to say whether the FTC will be able to prove its allegations during the trial,” said Judge Tuesday. Meta did not respond to a solicitation of the France-Presse agency in the immediate future.