The Federal Trade Commission is Trying to Limit Zuckerberg's Appetite for Metaverses
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed a lawsuit against Meta*. The regulator is going to stop the acquisition by the social media giant of the manufacturer of the popular VR fitness app Within.
The federal agency is concerned not only about competition in the field of VR fitness, but also about Meta's plans to capture the space of the metaverses.
Facebook Instagram's parent company is also the largest player in the virtual reality (VR) space, and Meta, as the name suggests, is steadily creeping towards creating its own super-duper metaverse. In fact, the FTC believes that the planned acquisition of Meta company Within will be another step towards full control over the entire nascent, but so popular sector.
"Meta will be one step closer to its ultimate goal - the ownership of the entire 'metaverse'," the regulator said in a statement.
Meta, which manufactures the Quest 2 headset (formerly Oculus Quest 2), announced the purchase in October last year. The deal worth more than $400 million had to be completed by August 1 to satisfy the requirements of the FTC.
In its statement, the agency claims that Meta is trying to suppress the competition of independent studios in the field of fitness in virtual reality by stupidly buying a studio-developer of a leading application in this field, instead of developing its own competing program. This cannot be allowed in any way, according to the FTC. As, however, Meta does all the time (remember the purchase of Instagram and WhatsApp).
The acquisition will "[weaken] future innovation and competitive rivalry," the agency writes. And this will violate the antimonopoly legislation. The FTC also mentions that Meta already owns Beat Games, the creator of the popular virtual game Beat Saber, which is used by users as a fitness application. Owning both studios will also affect competitive innovation.
Meta, which replaced Facebook, was conceived as a social technology company that was supposed to combine all applications and technologies within one brand. The project is focused on launching a metaverse - Mark Zuckerberg announced this last fall. Also, Meta, as planned, should "help people communicate, find communities and develop businesses." In the new metaverse, Zuckerberg says, a person will give up screens and experience the effect of being present in virtual reality.
Meta describes the metaverse as "a hybrid of social experiences available to users on the Internet, which will sometimes be expanded within three dimensions or projected into the physical world."
Prominent developers in the cryptocurrency space immediately sounded the alarm - they warned about Meta's plans to develop what they believe will be a centralized walled garden, rather than a beautiful metaverse spanning multiple platforms. Yat Siu, founder and executive chairman of metaverse investor Animoca Brands, called the firm a “threat” to the metaverse open space.
In a response statement, Meta rejected the regulator's claims and explained that the acquisition "will bring new investments into the virtual reality fitness space," and also denies that Supernatural and Beat Saber are similar. The firm has not commented on the FTC's accusation regarding its plans to develop and take over the metaverse sector.
* Meta activity is recognized as extremist, banned on the territory of Russia by the decision of the Tverskoy Court of Moscow dated 03/21/2022.
The most interesting and important news on our Telegram channel
https://coin-signal.com/cryptonews/the-federal-trade-commission-is-trying-to-limit-zuckerbergs-appetite-for-metaverses/
#Appetite, #Commission, #Cryptonews, #Federal, #Limit, #Metaverse, #Metaverses, #Trade, #Trying, #Zuckerberg8217S
#CryptoNews, #Metaverse