Judge is said to let Meta’s VR deal go ahead
Judge is said to let Meta’s VR deal go ahead
The lawsuit was the first of cases developed entirely under Ms Khan, a legal scholar who rose to prominence after writing an Amazon review that went viral, to be filed in court. Seeking to prevent more “vertical” deals, in which the two companies do not directly compete, the FTC also challenged Microsoft’s $69 billion purchase of video game maker Activision Blizzard in December. Last month, the Justice Department accused Google of abusing a monopoly on technology that places ads on websites.
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William E. Kovacic, a former chairman of the FTC, said the sealed decision in the Meta case would be more problematic for the agency if the judge rejected the legal theories underlying the challenge. But if Judge Davila viewed the FTC’s more innovative approach as plausible — even if the agency’s factual assertions were weak in this case — “it’s a low-impact defeat” less likely to hurt his future efforts. , Mr. Kovacic said.
The case was heard in San Jose, California in December. During the seven-day hearing, Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth testified. The FTC argued that if Meta did not buy Supernatural, it would develop its own virtual reality fitness game.
Meta’s case rested on evidence that developing or acquiring a fitness app was only a small part of a strategy that would eventually push VR, and by extension the Metaverse, to a greater popularity.
During the hearing, an FTC attorney asked Mr. Zuckerberg if it was true that acquiring or developing a fitness app was keeping him up at night. Fitness apps, Zuckerberg said, were just one type of app the company was interested in.
“Fitness was probably the fourth or fifth use case that I thought would be important,” he said, ranking apps focused on gaming, productivity and social interactions as higher priorities. . Developing a fitness app, he told the lawyer, didn’t cost him any sleep.
Mr Zuckerberg also told Judge Davila that if he blocked the deal it “would have a chilling effect”.
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