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Meta Fined $843M by EU over Marketplace Ads

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Re: Meta Fined $843M by EU over Marketplace Ads

#81

Post by piltdownman »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #70
ChrisArchitect wrote: post #12

Official release: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...

What they were found guilty of (was this even a trial?) seems like could apply to literally any business that participates in two markets. >Tying its online classified ads service Facebook Marketplace to its personal social network Facebook. This means that all Facebook users automatically have access and get regularly exposed to Facebook Marketplace whether they want it or not. You can accuse almost anything of that…

A retail store selling various kinds of retail goods and a Social Network embedding a Classified Ads service in their core offering are not remotely equivalent.

Re: Meta Fined $843M by EU over Marketplace Ads

#82

Post by piltdownman »

threeseed wrote: post #47
Etheryte wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't even remotely what happened here. Similar to the case where Apple was fined, Meta had years to comply with the new regulations — they simply chose not to and put their fingers in their ears instead. It's naive to think Meta didn't know it was breaking the law, they simply hoped they could get away with a fine that was smaller than the profit made.

> 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.

Making life harder for your competitors is fine. Doing so through illegal practices isn't.

If you want to operate as a marketplace, the EU denotes certain practices and standards for doing so. Don't like them? Don't operate as such.

Re: Meta Fined $843M by EU over Marketplace Ads

#83

Post by crazygringo »

olliebrkr wrote: post #58
crazygringo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you clarify the abusive part? In your scenario, Alice already decided not to buy anything from AcmeShop. Even if AcmeShop advertised on Facebook it wouldn't have changed her behavior. She got a better deal on Facebook Marketplace. And she was already visiting Facebook and the Marketplace is already a single click. I don't see the abusive or predatory part. It seems like Facebook Marketplace just offered a superio…

It's one sided. Facebook have all the data for how AcmeShop's products are selling. They are free to use this information to undercut AcmeShop's products with data AcmeShop does not have on Facebook. Yes, it's a better deal on the face of it, but as soon as AcmeShop goes out of business, competition is gone and Facebook can charge whatever they want. And we all know from the US markets that low to no competition does…

I'm still not following.

Facebook isn't setting prices on Marketplace -- sellers like you and me are. We're not getting any data from AcmeShop.

When you say "Yes, it's a better deal on the face of it", I don't know what "deal" you're talking about.

Re: Meta Fined $843M by EU over Marketplace Ads

#84

Post by piltdownman »

philjohn wrote: post #56
threeseed wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If Zuck is to be believed, he's not about making life harder for competitors, he's about competing vigorously. If you leverage your business, and data obtained for other reasons, to unfairly depress competition, the end user loses out, and is part of why antitrust legislation exists. Another example is what Amazon were accused of - using their internal data from providing seller services to then decide which products…

"If you leverage your business, and data obtained for other reasons, to unfairly depress competition, the end user loses out, and is part of why antitrust legislation exists."

This is the most salient point on the thread. People are studiously refusing to frame the discussion around this as pro-consumer, and prefer to maintain that it's nothing more than a proxy success-tax on BigTech.

Re: Meta Fined $843M by EU over Marketplace Ads

#85

Post by dgroshev »

threeseed wrote: post #69
olliebrkr wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one sided. Facebook have all the data for how AcmeShop's products are selling. They are free to use this information to undercut AcmeShop's products with data AcmeShop does not have on Facebook. Yes, it's a better deal on the face of it, but as soon as AcmeShop goes out of business, competition is gone and Facebook can charge whatever they want. And we all know from the US markets that low to no competition does…

None of this makes any sense. Facebook Marketplace is a marketplace. They don't control the products that are being advertised. All they can control is the weighting of ads they run on certain products e.g. "AirPods are popular, increase ad spend to 20% of total". But they could do this by simply optimising for ROAS just like every other company does. If Facebook is sharing AcmeShop data with Marketplace, and it's a…

They don't control the products that are being advertised, but they make personalised ads for Marketplace products more effective by using data they collect elsewhere. If the ads are more effective, Marketplace is better at shifting goods, undermining the competition because their competition is forced to share data with Facebook through Facebook's (not Marketplace's) market position.

Re: Meta Fined $843M by EU over Marketplace Ads

#87

Post by tossandthrow »

xvector wrote: post #86

I hope big tech just leaves the EU and leaves them scrambling to replace large swaths of infrastructure while everything goes down.

I can tell you that a lot of the EU hope the same - at this point MS teams has become a meme of poor quality - but because of the MS monopoly, it is not possible to compete

And because of the US' blatant lack of antitrust initiatives, probably because of the leverage it affords the US, everybody are forced this garbage upon them.

Re: Meta Fined $843M by EU over Marketplace Ads

#88

Post by xvector »

jsnell wrote: post #63
ancorevard wrote: post #28

Will future tech companies bother making their products available in the EU? Will it be worth it, or is just too big of a risk with uncertain outcomes?

It's funny that there are two common and opposite narratives in HN comments for EU fines on tech companies. The is to claim that the fines are far too small, and the companies will happily just continue breaking the laws and treat the fines as a cost of doing business. The other is that the fines are so impractically huge that they're going to drive the companies out of the EU entirely. Both narratives are just nonse…

Except the change the EU is trying to encourage with this ruling is really absurdly dumb. It's clearly and transparently rent seeking.

We are already in a trade war and the only one that refuses to acknowledge it is the US. The US needs to embargo and deprive EU of the essential tech infrastructure they provide it. Just turn it off or brick it one day and leave the EU scrambling to catch up with 20+ years of stagnation and missing services and hardware.

Let's see how good it will be for the consumer when tech just leaves. Maybe then they'll change their regulations to something that works to enable technological progress and innovation.

Re: Meta Fined $843M by EU over Marketplace Ads

#89

Post by mdhb »

bko wrote: post #79
sofixa wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your pictures weren't used to train AI models. Facebook can no longer create shadow profiles for people who aren't on it and thus can't consent. You can ask any company to tell you all they know about you, and delete it (with some small regulatory exceptions). You don't have 50 different chargers in your home. And a million other things.

> Your pictures weren't used to train AI models. This is almost certainly untrue. But if it gives you a piece of mind, so be it. > Facebook can no longer create shadow profiles for people who aren't on it. What impact does Facebook not having a ledger with my name on it have on my life? You still have ads and tracking in Europe, except now with cookie banners. > You can ask any company to tell you all they know about…

Then why don’t you exercise your personal preferences by moving to the US?

Re: Meta Fined $843M by EU over Marketplace Ads

#90

Post by crazygringo »

dgroshev wrote: post #73
crazygringo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you clarify the abusive part? In your scenario, Alice already decided not to buy anything from AcmeShop. Even if AcmeShop advertised on Facebook it wouldn't have changed her behavior. She got a better deal on Facebook Marketplace. And she was already visiting Facebook and the Marketplace is already a single click. I don't see the abusive or predatory part. It seems like Facebook Marketplace just offered a superio…

> In your scenario, Alice already decided not to buy anything from AcmeShop. Not really, that's exactly what "remarketing" ads are for — companies track people's interest and remind them of their products. However, in this case, Facebook is double dipping by taking money from their paying customer (AcmeShop), and then using data they obtained whilst serving their paying customer to frontrun the customer. If you or I…

But I see "remarketing" ads everywhere. Google does it too.

How is Facebook showing remarketing ads for items on Facebook Marketplace, the ads paid for by a Marketplace seller who is boosting their item, any different from Google showing remarketing ads for items on eBay, paid for by an eBay seller?

Because that same thing would be happening if AcmeShop were using Google Analytics. Or if Alice had just done a Google search, which might be how she found AcmeShop in the first place.

Or are you arguing against remarketing ads entirely?

I guess I'm just having a hard time seeing any harm here because Alice visited AcmeShop first and didn't buy anything. Like, if I run a shop stall that sells frobulators, and I see someone pass by a nearby stall that also sells frobulators, and they browse but don't buy one, and after they leave I wave to them, and they buy one from me because I have the exact model they wanted... I don't see anything illegal or immoral at all. The first store already had their chance! If Alice liked their items, she would have already bought from there, or gone back there when she was ready to buy.

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