The Federal Trade Commission has announced that it will dismiss Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive officer of Meta, from a case filed against the firm to prevent it from acquiring Within Unlimited, a start-up company that specialises in artificial intelligence.
In a document filed with the court on Tuesday, the government agency said that it had reached an agreement to withdraw Mark Zuckerberg as a defendant if Meta, which was previously known as Facebook, guaranteed that he would not attempt to directly buy Within Unlimited. Meta had requested that Mr. Zuckerberg’s status as a defendant be changed with the agency.
The Federal Trade Commission submitted its complaint to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in the month of June in an effort to stop Mr. Zuckerberg and Meta from acquiring Within, the company that is responsible for creating the widely used virtual reality fitness app Supernatural. In the lawsuit, Mr. Zuckerberg was named as a defendant, and the F.T.C. accused him and Meta of conspiring to purchase Within in order to break antitrust laws and establish a dominant position in the emerging market for virtual reality.
The lawsuit, which is part of a new strategy by Lina Khan, the chair of the F.T.C., to be more forward-looking in antitrust enforcement, is considered a long shot by some legal experts because this include an acquisition many start-ups. However, the lawsuit is part of a new strategy by Lina Khan, the chair of the F.T.C., to be more forward-looking in antitrust enforcement. In the past, the majority of antitrust court cases featured more developed markets and focused on the ways in which a merger might lead to increased pricing for consumers.
On the other hand, Ms. Khan has said that she intends to prevent the most powerful technological platforms from expanding their monopoly into developing areas such as virtual reality. According to Ms. Khan, the F.T.C. in the past was unable to accurately forecast difficulties associated with mergers involving tech businesses. The agency, for instance, gave its blessing to Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram in 2012, a transaction that paved the way for Facebook’s meteoric ascension to become a dominant force in the world of social media.
The complaint brought against Meta by the F.T.C. was also the first significant action taken against a technology firm under the leadership of Ms. Khan, who has pledged to increase the monitoring of corporate executives and hold them more accountable for infractions committed by their businesses.
