{"id":332073,"date":"2021-08-29T23:58:13","date_gmt":"2021-08-29T20:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/ftc-interviewed-zuckerberg-in-2012-making-facebook-suit-hard-sources\/"},"modified":"2021-08-29T23:58:13","modified_gmt":"2021-08-29T20:58:13","slug":"ftc-interviewed-zuckerberg-in-2012-making-facebook-suit-hard-sources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/ftc-interviewed-zuckerberg-in-2012-making-facebook-suit-hard-sources\/","title":{"rendered":"#FTC interviewed Zuckerberg in 2012 making Facebook suit hard: sources"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;<strong>#FTC interviewed Zuckerberg in 2012 making <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook<\/a> suit hard: sources<\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<div>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module alignleft\">\n        <\/aside>\n<p>The Federal Trade Commission secretly interviewed Mark Zuckerberg while probing Facebook\u2019s 2012 acquisition of Instagram \u2014 grilling the tech tycoon over the social network\u2019s motives in the controversial deal, two sources with direct knowledge of the situation told The Post.<\/p>\n<p>Facebook\u2019s chief executive had agreed voluntarily to speak with the feds in the\u00a02012\u00a0interview, which hasn\u2019t previously been reported, according to sources close to the situation. Despite regulators\u2019 concerns over the tie-up, Zuckerberg wasn\u2019t formally deposed and the FTC dropped its case\u00a0roughly three\u00a0months later.<\/p>\n<p>The fact that the interview took place could throw a wrench into the new antitrust case brought against Facebook by hard-charging FTC Chair Lina Khan, who is looking to unwind the tech giant\u2019s acquisitions of Instagram and Whats<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">App<\/a>, legal experts say. That\u2019s because it bolsters the argument that the feds already thoroughly reviewed the tie-up when it was proposed, and are now improperly trying to relitigate the case.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/mark-zuckerberg-ftc027.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1024\" alt=\"Instagram logo on a smartphone\" class=\"wp-image-19280854\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/mark-zuckerberg-ftc027.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1535 1536w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/mark-zuckerberg-ftc027.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all 1024w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/mark-zuckerberg-ftc027.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=512 512w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><figcaption>The Instagram purchase served primarily to bolster Facebook\u2019s IPO in 2012, Mark Zuckerberg maintains.<\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In the interview, sources said Zuckerberg denied that he had viewed Instagram as a competitor \u2014 a crucial point as regulators reviewed concerns that Facebook was building a monopoly in the social-networking space. Instead, Zuckerberg insisted in the interview that he wanted to buy Instagram to help\u00a0Facebook\u00a0fetch a better valuation in its initial public offering, which was to occur three months later, sources said.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s despite explosive internal\u00a0messages\u00a0that the feds had seized prior to the interview and used to confront Zuckerberg, the sources said. The\u00a0messages\u00a0eventually spilled into public view during a 2019 congressional hearing on tech antitrust concerns.<\/p>\n<p>In one of the 2012\u00a0messages, then-Facebook CFO David Ebersman asked Zuckerberg whether the potential purchase of Instagram was about neutralizing a competitor, acquiring talent or integrating products to improve Facebook.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a combination of neutralizing a competitor and improving Facebook\u201d, Zuckerberg replied.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/sized-lina-khan-ftc.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1024\" alt=\"Lina Khan\" class=\"wp-image-19283886\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/sized-lina-khan-ftc.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1535 1536w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/sized-lina-khan-ftc.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all 1024w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/sized-lina-khan-ftc.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=512 512w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><figcaption>FTC boss Lina Khan has pushed for Facebook to unwind itself from its acquisitions.<\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Sources said Zuckerberg defended\u00a0the February 2012 internal communications\u00a0in the FTC interview, saying they needed to be placed in a broader context.\u00a0At the time, Facebook was preparing for an IPO, which happened in May 2012. Zuckerberg said he believed buying Instagram might help Facebook\u2019s IPO valuation and that is what he meant. Likewise, he denied that he viewed Instagram as a real competitor to Facebook, noting that the company wasn\u2019t much bigger than several other, lesser-known photo-sharing apps at the time, the source said<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis was his spin,\u201d at the time, the source said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think he said anything to help himself,\u201d the second source with direct knowledge of the interview said. \u201cIf this interview and the texts were public in 2012, there would have been more pressure to block the merger.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, after interviewing Zuckerberg, the FTC decided against bringing him back to answer more questions in a formal deposition, according to sources.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/mark-zuckerberg-ftc-276.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1024\" alt=\"FCC building exterior\" class=\"wp-image-19280856\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/mark-zuckerberg-ftc-276.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1535 1536w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/mark-zuckerberg-ftc-276.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all 1024w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/mark-zuckerberg-ftc-276.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=512 512w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><figcaption>Despite concerns over Facebook creating a potential monopoly, the FTC isn\u2019t interested in formally deposing Mark Zuckerberg again, sources told The Post.<\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cI think there was a lot of reticence to produce him as a formal witness,\u201d the first source said. \u201cThe FTC tried to work around it because they did not want to depose him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Zuckerberg did not want to appear under oath, and regulators do not like bringing in the CEO of a large company multiple times for interviews unless they believe they might actually sue, the source said. In the end, the FTC regulators weren\u2019t convinced they had a winning case, the source added.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s partly because Instagram at the time had no revenue, crippling the FTC\u2019s ability to build an argument that the merger was anticompetitive under US antitrust law. Indeed, most of the FTC\u2019s five commissioners were concerned they wouldn\u2019t win if they sued to stop the merger because of antitrust rules that equate market share with revenue, sources said.<\/p>\n<p>Facebook wouldn\u2019t comment for this story, but earlier this month said in a statement: \u201cThe FTC\u2019s claims are an effort to rewrite antitrust laws and upend settled expectations of merger review, declaring to the business community that no sale is ever final.\u00a0\u201d The FTC didn\u2019t return calls for comment.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/mark-zuckerberg-ftc-279.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1024\" alt=\"William E. Kovacic\" class=\"wp-image-19280867\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/mark-zuckerberg-ftc-279.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1535 1536w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/mark-zuckerberg-ftc-279.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all 1024w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/mark-zuckerberg-ftc-279.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=512 512w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><figcaption>GWU law professor William E. Kovacic calls <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news<\/a> of the secret FTC meeting with Mark Zuckerberg \u201cvery provocative.\u201d<\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Imag<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Post reported exclusively in 2019 that then-FTC Chair Jon Leibowitz was interested in blocking the merger but could not get enough support among the other commissioners. Facebook, which had already accumulated a 60 percent share of the social network market, pushed the deal through in August 2012 \u2014 just four months after it announced it \u2014 partly by arguing that Instagram was a photo-sharing site for smartphones, not a social-networking site.<\/p>\n<p>Now, some experts say the FTC likely will have a hard time persuading a DC District Court judge to unwind the nearly 10-year-old deal despite claims that it helped kill off competition and allowed Facebook to become too dominant.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s very provocative,\u201d George Washington\u00a0University Law\u00a0Professor William Kovacic, who chaired the FTC in 2008 and 2009 told The Post when told of the secret Zuckerberg interview, saying he had been unaware it had taken place. \u201cThis sure doesn\u2019t help the Commission\u2019s case.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, FTC Commissioner Christine Wilson voted against filing the amended complaint, noting in her dissenting opinion, \u201cThe primary allegations \u2026 relate to Facebook\u2019s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, transactions that the FTC previously evaluated.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/mark-zuckerberg-ftc-281-1.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1024\" alt=\"Christine Wilson\" class=\"wp-image-19283865\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/mark-zuckerberg-ftc-281-1.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1535 1536w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/mark-zuckerberg-ftc-281-1.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all 1024w, https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/mark-zuckerberg-ftc-281-1.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;w=512 512w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><figcaption>Christine Wilson, one of the FTC\u2019s commissioners, believes Facebook\u2019s acquisitions have received enough prior evaluation.<\/figcaption><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cI believe it is bad policy to undermine the integrity of the premerger notification process established by Congress and the repose that it provides to merging parties that have faithfully complied with its requirements,\u201d Wilson wrote.<\/p>\n<p>If the FTC uncovered new information about what Facebook was thinking in 2012 that regulators didn\u2019t know at the time, it could make the case to unwind the merger easier to make, sources said.<\/p>\n<p>The first source with direct knowledge of the 2012 Zuckerberg interview estimated that the government has a 25 percent chance of winning its case against Facebook, even as Facebook argues not only that it cooperated with the FTC in 2012 but also that Instagram would have never become this successful on its own.<\/p>\n<p>Regulators\u2019 best chance of winning, according to the source, is showing that the facts have changed since the merger as Instagram has become a giant social-networking site and was not in the social-networking space 10 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf the facts change, you appraise a merger at time of the suit and not when the merger occurs,\u201d Penn Law Professor Herbert Hovenkamp told The Post.<\/p>\n<p>He said the FTC\u2019s new chair Kahn \u2014 a 32-year-old former Colubmia Law professor who has cast herself as a firebrand on antitrust issues \u2014 is likely partly pursuing the suit, brought initially by Trump-appointed regulators, because she could win even by losing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe gets two bites at the apple,\u201d Hovenkamp said. \u201cOne is to win \u2014 and if it falls apart, she still has a chance to win if Congress passes one of the more aggressive bills that changes merger law. She can make her case to Congress that the FTC would have sued to stop the Instagram merger had the antitrust laws been updated to give it more power.\u201d\n                        <\/p><\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more News articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/news\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2021\/08\/29\/ftc-interviewed-zuckerberg-in-2012-making-facebook-suit-hard-sources\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#FTC interviewed Zuckerberg in 2012 making Facebook suit hard: sources&#8221; The Federal Trade Commission secretly interviewed Mark Zuckerberg while probing Facebook\u2019s 2012 acquisition of Instagram \u2014 grilling the tech tycoon over the social network\u2019s motives in the controversial deal, two sources with direct knowledge of the situation told The Post. Facebook\u2019s chief executive had agreed&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":332074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/08\/mark-zuckerberg-ftc-284.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1024","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[115070,111048,4974,70875,33423,5077,72047],"class_list":["post-332073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-8-29-21","tag-antitrust-law","tag-facebook","tag-ftc","tag-instagram","tag-mark-zuckerberg","tag-whatsapp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}