The European Commission has fined Facebook parent company Meta 797.7 million euros for violations of antitrust law. According to the Brussels authority, the group allegedly linked its online advertising site Facebook Marketplace to its social network and imposed unfair trading conditions on other online advertising providers.
By linking its online advertising service to Facebook, all users of the social network would automatically have access to the Facebook marketplace and see it regularly, whether they wanted to or not, the European Commission said in a statement. Competitors would be excluded from the market in this way, as Facebook Marketplace benefits from the connection “from a significant sales advantage that other providers cannot compensate.”
Unfair trading conditions
The unilateral imposition of unfair trading conditions on other providers of online classified advertising services that advertise on Meta’s platforms, in particular the popular networks Facebook and Instagram, was also criticized: Meta could use advertising data generated by other advertisers exclusively for the benefit of Facebook. Marketplace, it was said from Brussels.
The Commission has instructed Meta to effectively stop these practices and refrain from “resuming this abuse in the future or introducing practices with the same purpose or effect”.
Deterrent effect
According to the Commission, the “duration and severity of the infringement” and the related turnover of Facebook Marktplaats were taken into account when determining the fine. In addition, Meta’s total turnover was taken into account “in order to achieve a sufficient deterrent effect on a company with equal resources to Meta.”
Meta announces an appeal
Meta announced it would appeal the decision. The US group added that the EU had provided no evidence of harm to competitors or consumers.
European competition watchdogs have been scrutinizing American technology platforms for years. In March, the European Commission had already imposed a competition fine of 1.8 billion euros on technology giant Apple. The US company was accused of abusing its dominant market position to distribute music streaming apps to iPhone and iPad users through its app store. Google has also been fined billions of dollars.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
