The European Commission fined Facebook’s parent company Meta for almost €800 million for breaching antitrust regulation on its online classified ads service Facebook Marketplace, following a three-long investigation in the matter.
Meta received a fine of €797.7 million, a first for a social media company over competition issues. The Commission, EU’s top antitrust agency, started investigating possible anti-competitive issues at Meta in 2021, together with the British antitrust agency. By December 2022 it told Meta of its findings and the US company responded to the point raised in June 2023, but failed to address the Commission’s concerns. The British investigation ended last year after Meta made concessions to the regulator.
The Commission found that Meta is distorting competition because it ties online classified ad business to its social network Facebook, exposing users to its Marketplace part and not allowing for competitors. In addition, the investigation found that Meta’s terms of services allow the company to harvest ad-related data from competing classified ad service platform operating on Facebook and Instagram, de facto creating an unfair advantage for its own Marketplace service.
When deciding on the amount of the fine, the Commission set on €797.7 million after styuding the length of the breach, the turnover of Marketplace linked with the malpractice and Meta’s total turnover.
The tech giant vowed to appeal the fine, but conceded that it will abide by the ruling and stop the offending conduct. On the other side, Executive Vice-President in charge of competition policy Margrethe Vestager said that “Meta tied its online classified ads service Facebook Marketplace to its personal social network Facebook and imposed unfair trading conditions on other online classified ads service providers. It did so to benefit its own service Facebook Marketplace.”
