A US federal judge has given tech giant Meta the go-ahead to go ahead with the acquisition of a virtual reality company.
According to a Bloomberg report on February 1, Judge Edward Davila of the US District Court for the Northern District of California denied an injunction from the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, as part of an effort to block the purchase of virtual reality company Meta Within. However, he also issued a temporary restraining order preventing Meta from closing the deal for at least a week.
The ruling was part of a lawsuit filed by the FTC against Meta and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, in July, in an attempt to block the tech company from “its ultimate goal of owning the entire ‘metaverse.'” Meta had planned to buy Within and its Supernatural fitness app, supposedly to acquire a potential threat to his metaverse plans.
Before rebranding to Meta, Facebook faced a similar complaint from the FTC for “anti-competitive conduct” in 2020 for its acquisition of WhatsApp in 2014 and Instagram in 2012 for allegedly stifling innovation by buying from competitors.. Messaging and photo-sharing apps had been potential challengers to the Messenger app and Facebook’s social networking site.
If you are successful in your legal endeavors, Meta could probably acquire small companies that offer metaverse-related products or services and have them operate under its umbrella rather than as competitors. The FTC has one week to appeal Judge Davila’s decision.
Zuckerberg stated in an interview in November that Meta was “overcoming” any doubts about his metaverse-related ambitions. The company declared losses of 3.670 million dollars in the third quarter of 2022and these numbers are expected to increase in 2023. Meta’s earnings report for the fourth quarter of 2022 will be released on February 1.
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