According to reports, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said today that it has removed Facebook parent company Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg from an antitrust lawsuit. The lawsuit seeks to block Meta’s acquisition of virtual reality (VR) startup Within Unlimited.
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In June, the FTC filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to block Meta and Zuckerberg’s acquisition of Within Unlimited, which operates a VR fitness app called “Supernatural.” The FTC believes the acquisition would give Meta an illegal dominance of the VR market. At the time, the FTC also named Zuckerberg as a defendant.
But today, the FTC said in a court filing that it agreed to remove Zuckerberg from the defendant’s list after Meta promised that Zuckerberg would not personally acquire Within Unlimited. Meta had previously asked the FTC to remove Zuckerberg from the defendant’s list.
The lawsuit is seen by many legal experts as a lofty target for the FTC because it involves: an M&A deal in an emerging market with many start-ups. The lawsuit is also part of FTC Chairman Lina Khan’s new strategy to be more forward-looking in antitrust enforcement.
Khan said she plans to prevent some of the biggest tech platforms from extending their dominance into emerging markets, such as VR. Khan also acknowledged that the FTC failed to anticipate problems with mergers among tech companies before. For example, the FTC approved Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram in 2012, and the deal further propelled Facebook into a social media giant.
