To Defeat FTC Lawsuit, Meta Demands Over 100 Rivals Share Biggest Trade Secrets

An anonymous reader shares a report: Several years after Facebook-owner Meta acquired WhatsApp and Instagram, the Federal Trade Commission launched an antitrust lawsuit that claimed that through these acquisitions, Meta had become a monopoly. A titan wielding enormous fortune over smaller companies, the FTC said Meta began buying or burying competitors in efforts that allegedly blocked rivals from offering better-quality products to consumers. In this outsize role, Meta stopped evolving consumer preferences for features like greater privacy options and stronger data protection from becoming the norm, the FTC claimed. The only solution the FTC could see? Ask a federal court to help them break up Meta and undo the damage the FTC did not foresee when it approved Meta's acquisitions initially. To investigate whether Meta truly possesses monopoly power, both Meta and the FTC have subpoenaed more than 100 Meta competitors each. Both hope to clearly define in court how much Meta dominates the market and just how negatively that impacts its competitors. Through 132 subpoenas so far, Meta is on a mission to defend itself, claiming it needs to gather confidential trade secrets from its biggest competitors -- not to leverage such knowledge and increase its market share, but to demonstrate in court that other companies are able to compete with Meta. According to court documents, Meta's so hungry for this background on its competitors, it says it plans to subpoena more than 100 additional rivals, if needed, to overcome the FTC's claims. Meta is asking its competitors for a wide range of insights, from their best-performing features to names of their biggest advertisers. It wants to see all business receipts, which to its competitors is seemingly turning the antitrust litigation into a business opportunity for Meta to find out precisely how other companies attract users, scale products, and gauge success. Among rivals already subpoenaed are Twitter, TikTok owner ByteDance, Reddit, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Snap. More requests could be made in the coming years, though, before the discovery for both sides concludes on January 5, 2024.

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