The Facebook marketplace, the micro-ads platform, has come under the scrutiny of the EU Antitrust.
In fact, Meta Platforms has received a formal complaint from the antitrust supervisory bodies of the European Union for the alleged elimination of advertising rivals by connecting the Facebook marketplace to its social network.
The European Commission thus paved the way for potential fines or changes to the company’s business model.
“Through its social network Facebook, Meta reaches globally billions of monthly users and millions of active advertisers,” said European antitrust commissioner Margrethe Vestager announcing the escalation of the case. “Our concern is that Meta ties its social network to online classifieds services called Facebook Marketplace,” meaning that “Facebook users have no choice but to have access to Facebook Marketplace.”
The case is the latest in a long Europe-wide crackdown on the market power of tech companies like Google, Apple and Amazon.com that has led to multiple investigations, fines and legislative changes. The EU previously fined Facebook for failing to provide correct information in its review of the WhatsApp takeover merger.