Meta to Allow Rivals to List Ads on Facebook Marketplace Following EU Fine

Meta Platforms announced on Thursday that it will permit competing classified ads service providers to list their advertisements on Facebook Marketplace. This move comes three months after the company faced a substantial 797-million-euro ($828 million) antitrust fine from the European Union for allegedly giving its own service an unfair advantage, according to Reuters.

The European Commission, in a decision issued in November 2023, determined that Meta had imposed unfair trading conditions on rival businesses and had unlawfully tied Facebook Marketplace to its social network, Facebook, in violation of EU antitrust regulations. Per Reuters, the commission found that these practices harmed competition in the online classified ads market.

In response to these concerns, Meta has introduced what it calls the Facebook Marketplace Partner Program. While the company is challenging the EU fine in court, it stated that the initiative aligns with the European Commission’s decision.

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“This new program will mean that third-party partners (specifically, online classified ad service providers as defined in the European Commission’s decision) will be able to list their consumer-to-consumer inventory on Facebook Marketplace,” Meta said in a blog post. The company added that these listings will be displayed alongside those from Facebook users and other third-party providers.

The move signals an effort by Meta to comply with regulatory demands while maintaining its presence in the online classified ads sector. However, the tech giant’s ongoing legal challenge against the EU fine suggests that it does not fully agree with the commission’s findings. According to Reuters, Meta continues to defend its business practices and has vowed to contest the penalty in court.

Source: Reuters