Following an attempt by the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to block the merger on the grounds that it would reduce the amount of competition in the market, the parent company of Facebook, Meta, has reportedly been given permission by a judge to complete its acquisition of virtual reality company Within Unlimited, and Meta now intends to expand its Metaverse project.
Bloomberg cites sources familiar with the judgement as saying that a US judge denied the FTC’s request for a preliminary order to freeze the proposed sale. This information comes from a story that was made by Bloomberg. A temporary restraining order was also issued by the judge, which will make it extremely difficult for Meta to complete the acquisition for the next week. This buys the FTC some time to consider whether or not to appeal the verdict.
According to Judge Edward Davila of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, the FTC was unable to prove that Meta would have entered the market to provide specialised fitness content if it had been unable to purchase Within. The case was heard in the Northern District of California.
The judge ruled that although Meta has “significant financial and VR engineering resources,” the company lacked studio production facilities as well as other elements that were specific to VR-based fitness apps.
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta and its creator, justifies the acquisition in testimony given in December by stating that his company was contributing to the development of the virtual reality market but did not control it. The judgement is excellent news for Zuckerberg, who says that his company does not control the virtual reality market.
According to testimony given by Zuckerberg in a federal court in San Jose, California, Owning Within was “not that crucial” to Meta’s ambitions, and according to Zuckerberg’s testimony, “it was less important that we own the experiences than that they exist.”
What specifically is the FTC-Meta Case?
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lodged a complaint in July 2022 in an effort to stop Meta from acquiring the virtual reality startup Within. Within is responsible for developing the popular VR application Supernatural. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) claims that the company created by Mark Zuckerberg purchased Within with the intention of destroying its competitors in the fitness industry. Meta has already acquired the rights to Beat Saber, a video game that is very comparable to Supernatural.
In December, Meta filed an appeal against the verdict, defending itself against allegations that it had unlawfully monopolised the virtual reality (VR) industry. As a direct consequence of this, Meta decided to put off making the purchase for another month. It was clear from the information that the deal would not be completed before the 31st of January. In August, the firm that now owns Facebook made the decision to postpone the completion of the transaction until the stroke of midnight on December 31.
In the event that this transaction is not successfully completed in a timely manner, the Chief Technical Officer of Meta, Andrew Bosworth, has stated that “we will probably just walk away.”
Companies that Meta has Acquired for the Development of Metaverse
In spite of the fact that the Metaverse project has incurred losses in the billions of dollars, the company continues to acquire other businesses. This month, it completed the acquisition of Gary Sharp Innovations, an optics company based in Colorado. This move will help the company produce higher-quality VR headsets and AR spectacles. In the month of June, Gary Sharp Innovations and Meta entered into an agreement for the purchase of shares.
In December, the parent company of Facebook made a purchase of Luxexcel, a firm that specialises in producing 3D-printed prescription lenses for smart glasses. In June, it purchased BigBox VR, the firm that was responsible for creating Population: VR. Between the months of January and April, Downpour Interactive, the VR game developer responsible for Onward, was acquired.
Instead of investing in the metaverse as a long-term research project, which Zuckerberg has acknowledged will take many years to complete, he should have prioritised successfully removing toxicity and false information from his applications and improving Facebook’s ad business and content feeds. He also should have focused on more successfully improving Facebook’s ad business. The latter is an area in which Zuckerberg is making headway. In order to help address the data gap that has been caused by Apple’s privacy-related changes to iPhones and iPads, which are expected to cost Meta $14.5 billion in lost ad revenue in 2022, he has spent the past year investing significantly more money in artificial intelligence. This is to help address the data gap that has been caused. By enhancing the machine-learning algorithms that are utilised by its advertising products, Facebook is able to forge stronger connections with its users, thereby improving its ability to comprehend those individuals for the sake of targeting without collecting any extra data.
