The EU Commission is in a punishing mood: we recently reported that it wants to ask the technology giant Apple to pay again. Now it’s the turn of the next company. The commission fined Facebook parent Meta a whopping 797 million euros.
Accusation of distortion of competition
The company is accused of having linked its online classifieds service Facebook Marketplace with the social network Facebook and of imposing unfair terms and conditions on other providers, as the responsible commissioner Margrethe Vestager explained. In doing so, Meta wanted to give its own service advantages that other providers of online classified advertising services could not compensate for. This is primarily because by linking Marketplace with Facebook, Meta automatically gives all users of its social network access to the service and would regularly inform them about it – whether they wanted it or not. The EU Commission emphasized that this practice would exclude competitors from the market.
This is how the enormous sum came about
According to the Commission, the amount of the fine took into account how long and how seriously Meta had violated EU law. In addition, sales from Facebook Marketplace were also included in the calculation. “The Commission also took into account Meta’s total turnover in order to provide a sufficient deterrent effect on a company with such large resources as Meta.”
But Meta has almost escaped with a black eye in comparison: EU competition authorities have been scrutinizing American technology platforms for years. In March, the Commission imposed a competition fine of an enormous 1.8 billion euros on Apple. And Google has also been sentenced to billions in fines in the past. (With material from dpa.)
