The European Commission considers that Facebook Marketplace is unfair competition. “Unsubstantiated” claims according to Meta.
Europe has filed a lawsuit against Facebook owner Meta over Market. The service would offer unfair competition to other similar services. By linking its social network so closely to Marketplace, the American giant has a “substantial distribution advantage” over its competitors, writes in particular the European Commission in a press release.
The European Commission considers that Facebook Marketplace is unfair competition
“With its Facebook social network, Meta reaches billions of users each month worldwide and millions of active advertisers,” said the European Commissioner for Competition in a press release. “Our first fear is that Meta is tying its dominant social network Facebook to its classified advertising services called Facebook Marketplace. This means that Facebook users automatically have access to Facebook Marketplace, whether they want it or not.
Additionally, the Commission found that Meta imposes unfair trading conditions on competitors who advertise on Facebook or Instagram. This essentially allows it to use “data related to competitors’ derivative advertisements for the benefit of Facebook Marketplace,” he explains. These practices, if proven, violate the rules of the European Union which prohibit the abuse of a dominant position. The European Union has the power to impose a fine of 10% of Meta’s annual revenue and to prohibit such actions in the future.
In a statement, Meta’s director for EMEA states that “the European Commission’s claims are baseless” and that the company “will continue to work with the authorities in charge to prove that our product innovation is in line with the customers and competition.
Last year, the European Commission launched an antitrust investigation into Facebook’s advertising practices to try to determine whether the giant breached competition rules by using ad data for its own benefit.
This is the first formal step in the Commission’s antitrust investigation, informing the parties involved of the complaints filed against them. Meta can now review the documents, respond in writing and request a hearing to present its comments, according to the Commission.