Facebook Wins Big With Dismissal of FTC Antitrust Suit 

Federal judge James Boasberg dismissed the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against Facebook on Monday, much to the chagrin of big tech critics. 

In his opinion, Judge Boasberg says that the FTC failed to give compelling evidence to show that Facebook was, in fact, a monopoly. The FTC claimed that Facebook was a monopoly by stating that they control “60%-plus” of the social networking market after their acquisitions of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014. However, the FTC failed to give the judge a satisfactory method for which they came about getting this number, so it basically was seen as a random guess. The judge also stated that the New York Attorney General waited too long after the time of the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp to object to them. 

The Judge did not completely shut the door on the potential for this case to continue into the future. He has given federal and state prosecutors 30 days to address his concerns with their argument and re-present them to the court. 

This decision was huge for Facebook’s stock as it rose by three percent and the company’s market value passed $1 trillion for the first time ever.