Was Meta Failing at the Job It's Hired For? The FTC Wraps Up Case-in-Chief

The FTC’s case-in-chief finished last week, on May 15, and Meta put on its entire case between then and May 21. We’re breaking down our summary into two parts: this entry will round up the last of the FTC’s fact witnesses. The next post will cover Meta’s witnesses.

This is a long post with a lot of detail. But let’s ground this in terms of what’s in dispute: Are Facebook and Instagram social networks that provide, first and foremost, connections with friends and family, and therefore form part of a relevant “personal social networking services” market? Or have they moved away from that core function as they compete for users’ time and attention against other apps? Keep that in mind as you read below.

A bit of housekeeping: we had previewed that the testimony of Alex Schultz, Meta’s Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President of Analytics, had been broken up over multiple days of trial. We didn’t cover him in depth before we got to FTC expert Scott Hemphill last week, so the full summary of his multiple days of testimony comes first.

Then we pick up where we left off with Tom Alison, Head of Facebook. (We’ve now heard from the “Head” of each of the three main Meta apps, including Head of WhatsApp Will Cathcart and Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri. You can read about their testimony here and here.) Rounding out the FTC’s case as its final witness was Bradley Horowitz, formerly of Google.

Meta’s “Fairy Godmother of Analytics”: Alex Schultz

We’ve seen him throughout trial at Meta’s counsel table, and his testimony was broken up over Weeks 4 and 5: Alex Schultz, Meta’s Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President of Analytics. Schultz is the head of analytics for all of Meta. His role seems to touch lots of different aspects of the business, and he was (predictably) a decent witness for Meta. Schultz has a theatrical touch, and he seems like a “company man”—he’s been with Meta since 2007. He’s also smart and willing to give easy answers to uncontroversial questions.

The FTC’s exam of Schultz began with a June 2012 email from him with the subject, “focus.” Schultz sets forth “2 main areas of focus as a team,” growth targets and revenue targets.

According to Schultz, Meta’s key “growth target” was Messaging, where it sought to reach “the next ...