Meta to Appeal EC Decision in Facebook Marketplace Antitrust Case

Meta said Thursday (Nov. 14) that it will appeal the European Commission’s (EC) decision in a case alleging practices involving Facebook and Facebook Marketplace that cause competitive harm.

The EC announced Wednesday (Nov. 13) that it fined Meta 797.72 million euros (about $842 million), saying the company violated European Union (EU) antitrust rules by tying Facebook Marketplace to Facebook.

The EC found that Meta gave its online classified ads service a substantial advantage over its competitors by automatically giving the users of its social network access to it, whether they want it or not, the EC said in a Wednesday press release.

The EC also found that the company imposed unfair trading conditions on other providers of online classified ads services who advertise on its platforms, allowing it to use data generated by their ads to benefit Facebook Marketplace, the release said.

“This is illegal under EU antitrust rules,” Margrethe Vestager, executive vice president in charge of competition policy, said in the release. “Meta must now stop this behaviour.”

In addition to imposing the fine, the EC ordered Meta to stop this conduct as well as any similar practices in the future, according to the release.

In a response to the EC’s decision posted Thursday, Meta said it will appeal the decision while also complying with it and addressing the points raised in the meantime.

The company said the decision provides no evidence of competitive harm to rivals or consumers, ignores the fact that there are several online marketplaces in the EU that are formidable contenders and continue to report commercial success, and protects large incumbent marketplaces from a new competitor — Facebook Marketplace — that delivers innovation and convenience to consumers.

The EC’s claim of an illegal tie ignores the fact that Facebook users can choose whether or not to engage with Facebook Marketplace, the company said.

“The reality is that people use Facebook Marketplace because they want to, not because they have to,” Meta said in its response to the decision.

“The decision also argues that Meta could use advertising data from rival marketplaces that advertise on Facebook to compete against them with Facebook Marketplace. But we don’t use advertisers’ data for this purpose and we have already built systems and controls to ensure that,” the company said in the response.

The EC announced its antitrust allegations against the company in late 2022, and Meta said in 2023 that it would challenge the allegations while also confirming its commitment to work with regulatory bodies.