EU prepares hefty fine for Meta’s Marketplace practices

Meta Platforms is facing its first EU antitrust fine for linking its Marketplace service with Facebook. The European Commission is expected to issue the fine within a few weeks, following an accusation over a year and a half ago that the company gave its classified ads service an unfair advantage by bundling it with Facebook.

Allegations include Meta abusing its dominance by imposing unfair trading conditions on competing classified ad services advertising on Facebook and Instagram. The potential fine could reach as much as $13.4 billion, or 10% of Meta’s 2023 global revenue, although such high fines are rarely imposed.

A decision is likely to come in September or October, before EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager leaves office in November. Meta has reiterated its stance, claiming the European Commission’s allegations are baseless and stating its product innovation is pro-consumer and pro-competitive.

In a separate development, Meta has been charged by the Commission for not complying with new tech rules due to its pay or consent advertising model launched last November. Efforts to settle the investigation by limiting the use of competitors’ advertising data for Marketplace were previously rejected by the EU but accepted by the UK regulator.