Who is instagram owned by

The US House antitrust subcommittee has made public the email exchanges between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and former chief financial officer David Ebersman, revealing that the company (and Zuckerberg, in particular) wanted to buy Instagram to avoid competition as it could have hurt the social network.

Rep Jerry Nadler (D-NY) on Wednesday grilled Zuckerberg about the Instagram acquisition during the testimonies from the Big Tech CEOs, including Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai of Google and Tim Cook of Apple.

The emails revealed that Zuckerberg wanted to buy Instagram as it was becoming a threat to Facebook.

"Facebook, by its own admission saw Instagram as a threat that could potentially siphon business away from Facebook," Nadler said during the hearing on Wednesday.

"So rather than compete with it, Facebook bought it. This is exactly the type of anti-competitive acquisition the antitrust laws were designed to prevent," Nadler added.

Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012, a shocking sum at that time for a company with 13 employees,

Instagram today has over one billion users and contributes over $20 billion to Facebook's annual revenue.

"I think the FTC had all of these documents and unanimously voted at the time not to challenge the acquisition," Zuckerberg said on Wednesday.

"In hindsight, it probably looks obvious that Instagram would have reached the scale that it has today. But at the time, it was far from obvious."

According to The Verge, the FTC completed its review of the acquisition in 2012 without holding any open hearings or issuing a public report.

The agency said it might reopen the inquiry at an unspecified future date, "as the public interest may require."

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Digital Editor

Facebook owns the four most downloaded apps of the decade

Image source, Drew Angerer

Image caption,

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg oversees the four most downloaded apps of the decade

The four most downloaded apps of the decade are all owned by Facebook, according to app tracker App Annie.

Facebook, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram top App Annie's list, which was published on Monday.

The most downloaded app between 2010 and 2019 was Facebook's main app, followed by the company's Facebook Messenger app.

WhatsApp came third, and Instagram fourth.

Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 for $1bn (£760m), and WhatsApp in 2014 for $19bn.

The App Annie ranking highlights just how much power and control Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has.

The four main apps that Zuckerberg oversees boast more than a billion users each.

"It is not ok," said Taha Yasseri, a senior research fellow in computation science at the Oxford Internet Institute.

"One company owning four of the most popular social networking and communication apps, at best, can be described as a data monopoly."

Mr Yasseri added: "Combined, the data from multiple platforms can lead to an extremely high level of precision in modelling our traits and behaviours. This amount of power should be regulated."

The UK "should tackle dominance of online giants," the UK's competition regulator said on Wednesday.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) raised concerns that people using these platforms may not be in control of their data.

Snapchat and Skype came 5th and 6th, followed by TikTok and UC Browser, which is owned by China's Alibaba.

YouTube came 9th and Twitter was in 10th place.

Eight of the top 10 apps are owned by US corporations, while two are owned by Chinese firms.

"Mobile has been at the heart of major changes in consumer behaviour this decade," wrote Adithya Venkatraman, a markets insights manager at App Annie, in a blog.

The most downloaded game of the decade was Subway Surfers, which is made by Denmark firm Kiloo.

Candy Crush Saga beat Temple Run 2 to second place, while Clash of Clans came in fifth.

"Communication and social media apps are consumer favourites, accounting for seven of the top 10 apps by downloads this decade," wrote Mr Venkatraman.

"In terms of consumer spend, video streaming and music apps were well represented, with Netflix, Pandora Music and Tencent Video all appearing in the top five."

Tinder ranked second on the highest spend list, behind Netflix.