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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

#101

Post by aga98mtl »

olliebrkr wrote: post #54
dgroshev wrote: post #41

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 Market…

It's 100% predatory. I hope we will see similar cases brought against Amazon soon (if they haven't been already). The fact that so many companies are dependent on selling on Amazon, yet Amazon also sells their own products, is ludicrous. - AcmeShop sells 3d printers and sell on Amazon - Amazon sees these printers are selling well - Amazon buys/creates their own 3d printer brand - Amazon gives their own products prefe…

Every big retailer has its own house brand. There is nothing special about a big retailer using their sales data to make decisions on house branding.

No they cannot adjust their pricing to whatever they like because Amazon is not a monopoly. People can buy stuff elsewhere. If Amazon pricing is bad, people will leave and it will kill Amazon.

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

#102

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

piltdownman wrote: post #81
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Facebook already has ads, this is just another kind of ad.

See how it comes entirely down to interpretation?

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

#103

Post by tossandthrow »

xvector wrote: post #92
tossandthrow wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I can tell you that a lot of the EU hope the same This is because 99.99% of people in the EU have zero understanding of how heavily reliant they are on American big tech under the hood. Nearly every piece of technology or every running service in the EU relies on it. I guarantee you most EU citizens don't want YouTube, Google Maps, Google Search, everything running on AWS/Azure/GCP, everything reliant on Intel/Nvid…

You are completely right - whenever you sidestep free market principles a nation can get ahead. Just like China constantly do it. This works until it doesn't anymore.

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

#104

Post by crazygringo »

true_religion wrote: post #98
crazygringo wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the social network with the classifieds service is much better. The reason it's so good is that it has real people's identities tied to the listings. That massively decreases issues around scams and safety. I want those things to be connected. I don't want regulations that make that illegal. That's the opposite of progress and consumer benefit.

Or they could just require ID for sales, just like every physical business who has to know who their so called marketplace partners are.

These aren't business marketplaces. These are more like classifieds, like Craigslist.

Nobody wants to share their ID with a stranger, especially because how would you even know if it was real?

But when you click through and they're part of a genuine social network and Facebook shows you have a mutual friend, that's pretty good social proof.

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

#105

Post by PeterStuer »

xvector wrote: post #88
jsnell wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 stagnati…

And should the EU then compell SAP to retaliate in kind? You can argue the EU is more a serv than an ally to the US, but they still need them on their side.

The number of times you can pull a Nordstream are preciously limited.

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

#106

Post by crazygringo »

dgroshev wrote: post #99
crazygringo wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

When Facebook is showing ads for items on Facebook Marketplace based on a customer visiting AcmeShop, for Facebook it's not "remarketing". It's only "remarketing" when AcmeShop does it. For Facebook, it's just targeting based on data they obtained during providing a paid service to AcmeShop. The customer didn't express interest but then abandon their purchase from Facebook yet. Google doing the same thing is hardly a…

I think you've lost me.

I thought you were suggesting this was remarketing, now you're saying it's just targeted advertising, are you saying targeted advertising is bad? Because AcmeShop is free to run targeted ads on Facebook too, whether remarketing or not.

I genuinely don't understand what you think Facebook is doing wrong here in having a targeted ads platform at the same time as running Marketplace. I don't see how doing the two together is abusive or predatory in a way that is different from doing those things as separate corporations.

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

#107

Post by true_religion »

crazygringo wrote: post #104
true_religion wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they could just require ID for sales, just like every physical business who has to know who their so called marketplace partners are.

These aren't business marketplaces. These are more like classifieds, like Craigslist. Nobody wants to share their ID with a stranger, especially because how would you even know if it was real? But when you click through and they're part of a genuine social network and Facebook shows you have a mutual friend, that's pretty good social proof.

I mean for them to share their ID with Facebook.

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

#108

Post by dgroshev »

crazygringo wrote: post #106
dgroshev wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Facebook is showing ads for items on Facebook Marketplace based on a customer visiting AcmeShop, for Facebook it's not "remarketing". It's only "remarketing" when AcmeShop does it. For Facebook, it's just targeting based on data they obtained during providing a paid service to AcmeShop. The customer didn't express interest but then abandon their purchase from Facebook yet. Google doing the same thing is hardly a…

I think you've lost me. I thought you were suggesting this was remarketing, now you're saying it's just targeted advertising, are you saying targeted advertising is bad? Because AcmeShop is free to run targeted ads on Facebook too, whether remarketing or not. I genuinely don't understand what you think Facebook is doing wrong here in having a targeted ads platform at the same time as running Marketplace. I don't see…

Alright, let's reframe this:

- AcmeShop is paying Facebook money to run a targeted marketing campaign on Facebook

- to do this, in practice AcmeShop is forced to share visit data with Facebook (this bit could be done differently, but for some reason that's how Facebook does it)

- a customer goes to AcmeShop, doesn't make an immediate purchase, leaves

- AcmeShop is paying Facebook to run a remarketing campaign for that customer, showing them the same product leading to AcmeShop

- at the same time, Facebook is using information that they obtained in the process of providing paid services to AcmeShop to show goods on their marketplace platform to the customer. For Facebook, it's not "remarketing", it's just "marketing" at this point. Not only that, but they control which ads they are showing, and naturally with Marketplace-only placements Facebook has an advantage over AcmeShop (again, using information that they effectively forced AcmeShop to provide)

Does this reframing make the problem of Facebook being both an ad seller, an ad manager, and offering the same service as their customers any clearer?

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

#109

Post by karaterobot »

beardyw wrote: post #24
karaterobot wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it a criminal trial?

Just a comment on the partisan language used.

It's relevant, because the standard of evidence would be much higher if it's a criminal trial vs. if it's a commission deciding whether or not to hand out a fine, where they have sole authority to do so. Meta could still maintain that it has done nothing wrong, in which case the article is right (and correct) to use the word 'alleged', since that's not been disproven. If they'd said 'guilty', they could open themselves up to legal trouble. I know nothing about the facts of this situation, to be clear.

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

#110

Post by ktosobcy »

xvector wrote: post #88
jsnell wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 stagnati…

Please, do it :D

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

No it's not. It's as any other regulation that tries to prevent overusing ones power.

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