The FTC argues that Meta acquiring Within would reduce future competition in the nascent VR market. Instead, the commission suggests, Meta should be developing its own products to enter that market.
Meta argues that smaller companies like Within often need the resources of larger owners to achieve their potential and reach more potential customers.Looming behind this case is what many critics see as the FTC's failure a decade ago to challenge Facebook's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.wants to take more cases to court"We're going to be focusing our resources on litigating, rather than on settling," Khan previously told Axios.
A victory in the Within case would bolster the agency's efforts to challenge other Big Tech acquisitions and chill other big companies' purchases. A loss for the FTC will make it that much harder for it to succeed at efforts to apply broader antitrust principles to other emerging markets."Congress created the FTC to stop unfair methods of competition affecting commerce," said Douglas Farrar, an FTC spokesperson. "When we bring cases we are following the laws on the books, and using the tools Congress gave us to protect Americans from illegal business practices.
The FTC has also called on Congress to pass laws that would give it more power to rein in digital giants.
I am quite literally biding my time, waiting for another high end VR product offering to hit the market that is *completely* divorced from oculus and META. I'll not own nor gift a META product.