European Union competition watchdogs believes that Meta companies Facebook and Instagram are using its social media prominence to gain an unfair advantage
Meta, the parent to massive social media platforms Facebook and Instagram have been accused by the European Union of breaching antitrust rules.
The European Union’s competition watchdog believes that the social media platforms used its marker prominence to avoid competition in the online classified ads category. This allegation was further proved by an analysis conducted by the same EU committee.
One of the most major concerns by the EU commission was the linking of Meta’s marketplace to the Facebook platform. The EU commission said that this was unfair to competitors since anyone that uses Facebook gets to the marketplace irrespective of the fact that they “want it or not”, this makes the Facebook marketplace almost untouchable for rival marketplaces.
“The Commission takes issue with Meta tying its online classified ads service, Facebook Marketplace, to its personal social network, Facebook,” said a member of the commission.
“The Commission is also concerned that Meta is imposing unfair trading conditions on Facebook Marketplace’s competitors for its own benefit” , said another.
The EU Commision also reported that Meta has been using data from online classified services from advertisers on Facebook and Instagram to their own advantage.
The investigation is currently ongoing however once the EU watchdogs find enough evidence against Meta, it will impose a fine on over 10% of the company’s annual revenue which amounts to somewhere around $11 to $12 billion.
Using its right to deny the accusations, Meta denied any claims of anti-competitive practices.
“We will continue to work with regulatory authorities to demonstrate that our product innovation is pro-consumer and pro-competitive. The claims made by the European Commission are without foundation”said ‘Tim Lamb’, Meta’s head of competition for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
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