EU Commission:

Meta must pay a fine of almost 800 million euros

The EU Commission has imposed a fine of 797.7 million euros on Facebook parent company Meta for antitrust violations. According to the Brussels authority, the group allegedly linked its online classifieds service Facebook Marketplace with its social network and imposed unfair trading conditions on other providers of online classifieds services.

Due to the linking of its online classifieds service with Facebook, all users of the social network automatically have access to Facebook Marketplace and are regularly shown it, whether they want to or not, according to the EU Commission in a statement. Competitors would be excluded from the market in this way, as Facebook Marketplace "benefits from a significant distribution advantage that other providers cannot compensate for."

The one-sided imposition of unfair trading conditions on other providers of online classified advertising services that advertise on Meta's platforms, in particular the popular Facebook and Instagram networks, was also criticized: Meta could only use advertising data generated by other advertisers for the benefit of Facebook Marketplace, according to the Brussels statement.

The Commission has instructed Meta to effectively stop this behavior and to refrain from "resuming this abusive behavior in the future or introducing practices with the same object or effect".

Deterrent effect
According to the Commission, the "duration and gravity of the infringement" and the turnover of Facebook Marketplace associated with it were taken into account when setting the fine. In addition, Meta's total turnover was taken into account "in order to achieve a sufficient deterrent effect on a company with such large resources as Meta."