Meta Fined $843M by EU over Marketplace Ads

I suspect the latter part is so commonplace that many technologists don't even think twice about it.

> Unilaterally imposing unfair trading conditions on other online classified ads service providers who advertise on Meta's platforms, in particular on its very popular social networks Facebook and Instagram. This allows Meta to use ads-related data generated by other advertisers for the sole benefit of Facebook Marketplace.

Consider this:

- A local marketplace AcmeShop wants to advertise itself on Facebook, paying Facebook for ads.

- The only practical way to do so requires AcmeShop to install Facebook's tracking on their website. The tracking is always dual purpose: on the one hand, it gives AcmeShop data on conversion from their ads (which is vital for AcmeShop), but on the other it also gives Facebook data about AcmeShop users.

- Alice wants to buy a used 3D printer. She goes to AcmeShop, searches for 3D printers, checks a few listings out, but doesn't buy anything.

- Alice opens Facebook. At this point, Facebook registered Alice's visit to AcmeShop 3D printer listings, so of course they serve ads for 3D printers selling on Facebook Marketplace.

- Alice buys a used 3D printer from Facebook Marketplace, cutting AcmeShop out.

AcmeShop has a tough choice: they either advertise on Facebook, pay Facebook, and help Facebook to undermine their own business, or they forgo Facebook as a marketing channel altogether.

Usually different parts of this scenario are discussed in isolation (performance marketing, user tracking, privacy on Facebook, etc.), obscuring the larger picture. I don't see how Facebook's behaviour taken as a whole is anything but predatory and abusive of their position.

This is what drives me nuts with so many of these EU antitrust articles lately.

They're clear about the fine, but then it's all handwavy language about what a concrete violation even looks like. So it's impossible to even have an opinion because nobody even knows what we're actually talking about.

Best I could gather from the article is that this has something to do with paid ads on Facebook and Instagram that link to Marketplace vs. paid ads that link to other similar services (like eBay I'm guessing?), and that there's something extra-special about the Marketplace ads that the eBay ads don't have. But what even is the special thing? And is the article even accurate on this? Because it also refers to Marketplace listings as "ads" so it's not easy to parse.

It surprises me how many people here are against this decision, and expressing sentiment that this is bad for the EU tech scene.

Meta has been fined because they employed tactics to undermine competition and persistently employ anti-competitive tactics.

Why is it wrong for the EU to force companies to obey it's laws and act in the best interest of it's inhabitants?

The companies being targeted are some of the biggest companies in the world and are accountable to almost no-one. Because they're a monopoly they're somehow exempt from the rulebook? C'mon.

If anything this helps competitor businesses because it shows that the tech giants are not except for the law, and the EU will fight for competition. Something the US sorely lacks in many industries.

> Meta had years to comply with the new regulations

This has nothing to do with the DMA if that's what you mean.

EU is alleging Meta is infringing on the 1994 EEA Agreement specifically the generic "don't impose unfair trading conditions" clause. Which if it successful should frighten most companies. Because making life harder for your competitors is the entire point of business.

It's a large market, and more profitable than APAC and RoW per user (just look at the Meta investor presentations which show that it's US, followed by the EU then APAC and RoW[1]).

[1] https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2024/q3...