Europe Fines Meta $840 Million Over Anticompetitive Marketplace Practices

Meta has been hit with a huge regulatory fine in Europe. The European Commission announced on Thursday that it would fine the tech giant nearly $840 million for breaching EU antitrust rules by tying its online classified ads service Facebook Marketplace to its personal social network Facebook and by imposing unfair trading conditions on other online classified ads service providers. 

The Commission said in a statement that it found that Meta abused its dominant positions and added that "all Facebook users automatically have access and get regularly exposed to Facebook Marketplace whether they want it or not." The European Commission also stated that Meta "unilaterally" imposed unfair trading conditions on other online classified ads service providers who advertise on Meta's platforms. "This allows Meta to use ads-related data generated by other advertisers for the sole benefit of Facebook Marketplace," the Commission added. 

"Today we fine Meta €797.72 million for abusing its dominant positions in the markets for personal social network services and for online display advertising on social media platforms," said Margrethe Vestager, executive vice president in charge of competition policy, in a statement. 

A TechCrunch report suggests that Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, has cumulatively faced billions of dollars in fines in Europe for a variety of infringements over the last several years. In September, Ireland’s data protection watchdog fined Meta $101.7 million over a security lapse involving passwords. Meanwhile, Meta responded to the matter and said that it would appeal the decision.