By Azania Patel
Meta, Facebook’s parent company has been accused of flouting competition rules by anEU commission. If the charges are proven, they may face a penalty of up to £10m.
Meta is likely in breach of the European Union’s anti-trust regulations. The EU’s preliminary review has found that Meta has tied access to the social media platform to Facebook Marketplace. Facebook Marketplace is the social media platform’s classifieds ad page. As Facebook is a dominant player in the market, this may skewer competition.
Facebook holds 77.2 per cent of the social media market share in Europe and 64.38 per cent in the UK. Facebook generated over £250m in advertising revenue in the first quarter of 2022. It is closely followed by Meta’s other holding, Instagram. The misuse of its classifieds ad section for self-promotion is in conflict with EU policy on monopolies and fair competition.
Recently, the EU had cracked down on Amazon for similar breaches. The US based retailer agreed to settle in order to avoid heavy fines. Even though Meta is headquartered in the US as well, it is liable to EU regulation.
Commenting on Meta and Facebook’s possible law breach, Margrethe Vestager in-charge of EU’s competition policy said, “Facebook users have no choice but to have access to Facebook Marketplace. Furthermore, we are concerned that Meta imposed unfair trading conditions, allowing it to use of data on competing online classified ad services. If confirmed, Meta’s practices would be illegal under our competition rules”
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