The US Federal Commerce Fee (FTC) has filed an attraction towards a ruling made by the US District Court docket for the District of Columbia in November 2025, which favoured Meta Platforms in an antitrust case.
The attraction can be reviewed by the US Court docket of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
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The FTC contends that Meta has unlawfully maintained a monopoly in private social networking providers by way of anticompetitive practices, primarily involving its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.
Within the November resolution, a federal choose decided that Meta, guardian firm to Fb, doesn’t possess a monopoly within the social media panorama, thus thwarting the FTC’s try to reverse its purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp.
The FTC had aimed to compel Meta to divest Instagram and WhatsApp to revive competitors, arguing that the Fb guardian’s substantial acquisitions had been supposed to neutralise rising opponents.
FTC Bureau of Competitors Director Daniel Guarnera stated: “The US economic system thrives when competitors can flourish and US companies compete pretty towards each other. But Meta has maintained its dominant place and report earnings for effectively over a decade not by way of respectable competitors, however by shopping for its most vital aggressive threats.
“The Trump-Vance FTC will proceed preventing its historic case towards Meta to make sure that competitors can thrive throughout the nation to the advantage of all People and US companies.”
Meta’s acquisition technique started with Instagram in 2012 and continued with WhatsApp in 2014. On the time, these acquisitions confronted no regulatory opposition. Nevertheless, in 2020, the FTC launched authorized motion claiming that Fb, now working as Meta, engaged in systematic methods that suppressed competitors by buying potential rivals and imposing restrictive circumstances on software program builders.
The social expertise firm has been underneath regulatory scrutiny in different jurisdictions as effectively. In April 2025, it was fined €200m ($234m) by the European Fee (EC) for allegedly breaching the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
The DMA requires gatekeepers to get customers’ consent to mix private information throughout providers and supply an equal, much less personalised different. The Fee discovered Meta’s “Consent or Pay” mannequin for Fb and Instagram non-compliant as a result of it left European Union (EU) customers solely a selection between consenting to information mixture for personalised advertisements or paying for an ad-free subscription.
In the meantime, in China, Meta’s proposed acquisition of Manus has reportedly come underneath the scanner of regulatory authorities.
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