EU antitrust dispute: Meta opens Facebook Marketplace to competitors
Following the EU Commission's antitrust fine in the millions, Meta will in future display competing ad providers on Facebook, but is still appealing.
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The social media group Meta is opening up its previously closed platform Facebook Marketplace to competing providers of classified ads. The company announced this on Thursday. The move comes after the European Commission imposed a fine of 798 million euros on Meta in November because, in the opinion of the European competition authorities, Facebook was unlawfully favoring its own Marketplace over its competitors.
"In response to the European Commission's decision on Facebook Marketplace, we are introducing the Facebook Marketplace Partner Program to enable eligible third-party partners to distribute offers on Facebook Marketplace to users in the European Economic Area," Meta said in a blog post. The new program would enable third-party partners to offer their consumer-to-consumer inventory on Facebook Marketplace. "This inventory will appear side-by-side with third-party inventory and listings from Facebook users."
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At the beginning of January, Meta declared that it did not agree with the EU Commission's decision and would continue to appeal. The EU Commission had investigated whether Meta was abusively favoring the Facebook Marketplace and found a violation of EU antitrust law. The Commission criticized the close link between Facebook and the Facebook Marketplace, thanks to which every Facebook account automatically has access to the marketplace. This puts competitors at a disadvantage, the EU Commission ruled. It ordered Meta to stop linking its classifieds service to Facebook and to stop imposing unfair trading conditions on competing second-hand platforms.
At the time, Meta announced that it would work "quickly and constructively" on a solution that would take the criticized points into account. As part of a pilot test in Germany, France and the United States, Meta tested the partner program in cooperation with Ebay in January. Some Ebay listings automatically ended up on Facebook Marketplace. The EU Commission is currently investigating whether Meta has fully complied with the November order.
(akn)
