By Jody Godoy and Mike Scarcella
(Reuters) -A federal judge ruled in favor of Meta Platforms on Tuesday, saying the company does not hold an illegal social media monopoly given the rise in popularity of TikTok,
handing Big Tech its first decisive win against the antitrust crackdown started in President Donald Trump's first term.
The ruling is a major setback for the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which is pursuing a separate antitrust case against Amazon.com. The agency sought to force Meta to restructure or sell Instagram and WhatsApp in order to restore competition among social media networks.
"The landscape that existed only five years ago when the Federal Trade Commission brought this antitrust suit has changed markedly," U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled.
Meta argued at trial that buying companies that excelled in new features instead of building competitor products was a valid business strategy, and that the FTC had ignored competitive pressure from ByteDance's TikTok, Google's YouTube and Apple's messaging app, among others.
Boasberg said in the ruling that the FTC had incorrectly excluded YouTube and TikTok from the market where it challenged Meta's dominance. "Even if YouTube is out, including TikTok alone defeats the FTC’s case," the judge said.
The case is part of a larger antitrust crackdown on Big Tech in the U.S. In addition to the FTC's antitrust case against Amazon, the Department of Justice has brought claims against Alphabet's Google and Apple.
(Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York and Mike Scarcella in WashingtonEditing by Chris Sanders and Matthew Lewis)
