European Commission issues Meta with hefty fine for tying Facebook and Marketplace | Infinium-tech
The European Commission (EC) is again imposing another huge fine on a US tech giant. This time it is meta and the fine is €797.72 million (about $843.1 million).
The reason for this is basically Meta pushing the Marketplace down the throat of every Facebook user, whether they want it or not. The Election Commission says this amounts to imposing unfair trading terms on other online classified advertising service providers.
Basically, the only classified ads you see on Facebook are through the Marketplace from Meta, and because of the way it’s tied to Facebook, it leaves out any potential competitors. But wait, there’s more. The EC also says Meta is imposing unilaterally unfair trading conditions on other classified ad providers that advertise on its platform, allowing Meta to use ad-related data generated by other advertisers “for the sole benefit of Facebook Marketplace.” allows for.
The EC investigation found that Meta is “dominant” in national markets for online display advertising on individual social networks as well as on social media, so examined its behaviour.
The level of the fine was determined having regard to “the duration and seriousness of the infringement as well as the turnover of the Facebook Marketplace to which the infringement relates”. In addition to the fine, Meta is now also obliged to “effectively end the conduct and refrain from repeating the violation or adopting practices with equivalent object or effect in the future.”
Unsurprisingly, Meta is not happy and has vowed to appeal the decision in order to “promote better outcomes for European consumers”, as it is a “marketplace created in response to consumer demand”. The company says the EC’s decision “ignores market realities” and “will only serve to protect existing markets from competition”.
Meta’s main and possibly most compelling argument appears to be that “Facebook users can choose whether to engage with the marketplace, and many can’t”. “The reality is that people use Facebook Marketplace because they want to, not because they have to,” Meta says.
Meta also says it has created systems and controls to ensure it does not use rivals’ advertising data to compete with the marketplace.
Leave a Reply