Meta once again the risk of being heavily fined by the European Commission. The bloc’s regulatory arm is preparing its findings that Meta linked its Marketplace service to Facebook to undermine its competitors. Financial Times reportsreports with reference to informed sources on the issue.
If found guilty, Meta could pay up to 10 percent of its global annual revenue — which reached nearly $135 billion last year. However, the penalty could be much smaller, and the Meta will almost certainly complain about it.
The commission began by announcing its first investigation in 2019 preliminary findings three years later, “Meta is linking its dominant social network, Facebook, to an online advertising service called Facebook Marketplace,” said Margrethe Vestager, executive vice president for competition policy. reported at the time. “Furthermore, we are concerned that Meta has imposed unfair trading terms that allow it to use data about competing online classified ad services. If approved, Meta’s practices would be unlawful under our antitrust rules.” Meta faces other Commission investigations electoral politics, addiction and safety issues for minors and his consent or payment model.
The news comes at a time of transition for the European Commission with President Ursula von der Leyen announced his new team just yesterday. A shake-up for his second term will see Margrethe Vestager, head of the competition for the last decade, replaced by Teresa Ribera. He reports that Vestiger would resign appeared for the first time in August this year.
