It imposes a fine of €800 million for the Marketplace service

After two years of research, the European Commission fined the Meta company €797.7 million due to a possible unfair market advantage. Why? They are to blame for forcing Facebook users to be exposed to classified ads on the Marketplace and imposing restrictions on other ad providers.

In a statement, EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager accused Meta of abusing its dominant position in the social media market "to benefit its Facebook Marketplace service, gaining advantages that other online ad service providers could not follow." This is illegal under EU antitrust rules."

The European Commission has ordered the company Meta to "cease this conduct". What exactly this means and what Meta needs to change is currently not clear. Last year, Meta already had to pay 1.3 billion $ because they transferred the personal data of European Union citizens to the United States in the wrong way.

Meta clearly announced right away that they are already preparing a complaint, but in the meantime they will act in accordance with the EU order and prepare constructive solutions for the points raised. In the complaint, they wrote that Facebook users have the option not to participate in the Marketplace service, and that the accusation is based on a purely theoretical scenario of harming competition.