“The F.T.C. has no answer to the most basic question — how could Meta’s acquisition of a single fitness app in a dynamic space with many existing and future players possibly harm competition?” Nikhil Shanbhag, Meta’s vice president and associate general counsel, wrote in a blog post.
The company added that it hadn’t decided on whether to challenge the lawsuit, which was filed on Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
The F.T.C. accused Meta of building a virtual reality “empire,” beginning in 2014 with its purchase of Oculus, the maker of the Quest virtual-reality headset. Since then, Meta has acquired around 10 virtual-reality app makers, such as the maker of a Viking combat game, Asgard’s Wrath, and several first-person shooter and sports games.
By buying Within and its Supernatural virtual-reality fitness app, the F.T.C. said, Meta wouldn’t create its own app to compete and would scare potential rivals from trying to create alternative apps. That would hobble competition and consumers, the agency said.
“This acquisition poses a reasonable probability of eliminating both present and future competition,” according to the lawsuit. “And Meta would be one step closer to its ultimate goal of owning the entire ‘Metaverse.’”
Rebecca Haw Allensworth, a professor of antitrust law at Vanderbilt University, said the F.T.C.’s arguments would face tough scrutiny because Meta and Within did not compete with each other and because the virtual-reality market was fledgling.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/28/technology/ftc-lina-khan-meta.html
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