Source: Caixin.
Author: Zhou Zi Yi
Insiders revealed that Meta will receive an anti-monopoly fine from the European Union in the next few weeks for abusing its dominant position in the advertising market.
The committee accused Meta of bundling its classified ad service Facebook Marketplace with its social network.
The committee may announce its decision in September or October, with fines potentially as high as $13.4 billion.
According to insiders,$Meta Platforms (META.US)$ will receive a huge anti-monopoly fine from the EU in the next few weeks for leveraging its dominant position in the advertising market to bundle its classified ad service Facebook Marketplace with its social network.
More than a year ago, the EU commission pointed out that this U.S. tech giant bundled its dominant Facebook with its online classified advertising service called Marketplace, which means that Facebook users have no choice but to access Marketplace.
At that time, the EU commission pointed out that Facebook was able to obtain "distribution advantages that competitors could not match" by automatically directing users to its Marketplace platform for commodity trading.
Currently, it is rumored that based on this point, Meta may face EU regulatory fines of up to $13.4 billion, or 10% of its global revenue in 2023, while EU sanctions are usually far lower than this upper limit.
Sources also revealed that the EU commission may announce its decision in September or October, and then EU competition affairs responsible person and antitrust commissioner Margrethe Vestager will leave office in November.
Regarding the potential punishment action of the EU commission, Meta reiterated its previous comments, and company spokesperson Matt Pollard pointed out, "the EU commission's accusations are unfounded. We will continue to work constructively with regulatory authorities to demonstrate that our product innovation is beneficial to consumers and competition."
In addition, Meta was also accused by the EU commission this month of failing to comply with its tech antitrust law.
This was due to Meta's introduction of a new ad model in November last year, where paying users' data would not be collected or used for personalized ad placement, but free users would still have to passively accept personalized ads. The EU commission believes that this model does not comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) requirements.
Editor / Feynman