A federal judge in the United States has given the go-ahead for tech giant Meta to proceed with the acquisition of a virtual reality company.
Judge Edward Davila of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California rejected the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) request for an injunction to prevent Meta from acquiring VR company Within, according to a report from Bloomberg on February 1.
He allegedly also imposed a temporary restraining order that will keep Meta from finalizing the transaction for at least a week. The FTC sued Meta and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg in July in an effort to stop the tech company from achieving its ultimate aim of owning the entire “metaverse.”
The decision was a component of that litigation. In order to purportedly acquire a potential challenge to its metaverse aspirations, Meta had planned to acquire Within and its fitness app Supernatural.
Prior to changing its name to Meta, Facebook was accused of engaging in similar “anticompetitive conduct” by the FTC in 2020 for purchasing Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014, which was said to have stifled innovation.
The social media site and Messenger app from Facebook have potential rivals in the messaging and photo-sharing apps. If successful in its legal actions, the Facebook parent company would probably be able to buy small businesses that provide goods or services connected to the metaverse and have them operate under its umbrella rather than as rivals.
According to reports, the FTC has one week to appeal Judge Davila’s ruling. In a November interview, Zuckerberg claimed that Meta was “powering through” any reservations about its plans for the metaverse.
In the third quarter of 2022, the corporation recorded losses of $3.67 billion, with projections that these figures would rise in 2023. On February 1st, Meta will publish their results report for the fourth quarter of 2022.
