The European Commission is not happy with the way Meta links Marketplace advertising with Facebook. The company faces an antitrust fine in the coming weeks.

The European Commission will impose an antitrust fine on Meta within a few weeks. Reuters knows this. The EU accused Meta of anti-competitive practices a year and a half ago. This time the focus is on Facebook and the link to the Marketplace.

Unfair advantage

The European Commission considers that Meta is giving Marketplace an unfair advantage by bundling this solution with Facebook. In this way, Meta would be exploiting its dominant position to give Marketplace an unfair advantage over other platforms. Think, for example, of 2dehands, which cannot count on the visibility of an automatic link to Facebook.

The amount of the fine is not yet known and the committee has not yet made an official announcement. Theoretically, Meta could receive a bill of up to ten percent of its global turnover in 2023. That would be more than thirteen billion dollars. In practice, the fine is likely to be significantly lower.

Own interpretations and additional complaints

Meta disagrees with the committee’s reasoning and believes it is doing nothing wrong, but Mark Zuckerberg’s company has made a habit of preferring its own interpretations of European legislation to what is actually in the text and what European courts have ruled in the past.

This complaint is not the only one against Meta. For example, the company’s “Agree or Pay” model would violate both consumer protections and the DMA. Meta would also not properly comply with the DSA.