Mark Zuckerberg's Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, was awarded €797.72 million by the European Commission for breaching EU antitrust rules related to Facebook Marketplace, its online classified advertising service. The company was fined a huge amount (approximately $840 million).
tech crunch report The European Commission announced yesterday that it will fine Meta nearly $840 million for abusing its dominant position in the online display advertising market on personal social networking services and social media platforms. The fine is the latest development in a lawsuit dating back to June 2021, when regulators determined in December 2022 that Facebook Marketplace violated antitrust laws.
Margrethe Vestager, executive vice president for competition policy, said Meta tied its Facebook Marketplace service to its personal social network Facebook, imposing unfair trading conditions on other online classified advertising service providers. . This action is intended to benefit Facebook Marketplace and give it an advantage over its competitors, and is illegal under EU antitrust law.
In response to the ruling, Facebook said that the ruling ignores the reality of the booming European market for online job posting services, and that the decision ignores the reality of the booming European market for online job posting services, and that new entrants to meet consumer demand, such as Facebook Marketplace, are being replaced by large, established companies. He stated that he intends to appeal against this ruling. An innovative and convenient way.
The fine is the latest in a series of multibillion-dollar fines that Meta has received in Europe over the past few years for various violations. In September, the company was fined more than $100 million related to a security breach that exposed users' passwords. In January 2023, the company was fined a total of more than $400 million for a series of violations. Additionally, in May 2023, Meta was fined over $1 billion for GDPR violations.
Separately, the company is facing other legal issues in Europe, including a $600 million damage claim in Spain related to a privacy breach case reported in December 2023. It will be done. Regulatory litigation can take years to complete, and Meta is in various stages of appeals. The company has settled several lawsuits over these fines, including a 2019 U.S. FTC case in which it paid $5 billion and introduced new privacy practices.
The European Commission calculates fines on a sliding scale and can amount to up to 30 percent of the turnover of companies in the category. The timing of this fine is significant, especially at a time of shifting political tides in the United States, where the executive and legislative branches are controlled by Republicans. This change could affect how Big Tech is regulated, not only in the U.S. but also in other parts of the world.
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Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering free speech and online censorship issues.
