The European Commission announced this Thursday, November 14, that it had imposed a fine of 798 million euros on Meta for having infringed competition rules by linking its online advertising service, Facebook Marketplace, to its social network Facebook.
Brussels believes that the American giant has thus imposed “unfair commercial conditions” on other providers of online advertising services. Meta immediately reacted by announcing that the group would appeal this decision which “ignores the realities of the European market”.
The fine announced Thursday is the seventh largest ever imposed by the EU for anti-competitive practices (excluding cartels), in a ranking dominated by Google, Apple and Intel.
The social media giant (which also owns WhatsApp and Instagram) “sought to give its Facebook Marketplace service advantages that other online advertising service providers could not match”, explained the European Commissioner for Privacy. Competition, Margrethe Vestager, in a press release. “This practice is illegal. Meta must now put an end to this behavior,” she demanded.
The European executive, the watchdog of competition in the EU, opened a formal investigation on this subject in June 2021. It communicated its grievances in December 2022, giving Meta the opportunity to defend itself. The Commission claims that Facebook abused its dominant position. “All Facebook users automatically have access to Facebook Marketplace and are regularly exposed to it, whether they want to or not,” she explained. She estimated that “Facebook Marketplace’s competitors risked being ousted” because they could not match this “substantial advantage.”
“Unfair commercial conditions”
Brussels also notes that Meta has “unilaterally” imposed “unfair commercial conditions” on other suppliers who advertise on Meta’s platforms, “in particular on its very popular social networks Facebook and Instagram”. “This allows Meta to use data generated by other advertisers for the sole benefit of Facebook Marketplace,” believes the Commission.
“This decision ignores the realities of the thriving European market for online classifieds services and protects large established companies from the arrival of a new competitor,” Meta asserts, on the contrary, in a press release. “Facebook users can choose whether or not to use Marketplace and many do not,” assures the Californian group, which also emphasizes “not using advertisers’ data” to compete with them. “We will appeal,” Meta said, saying the European Commission had “found no evidence of harm to competitors.”