Europe and Britain launched formal antitrust investigations into Facebook on Friday to determine if the world’s largest social network was using customer data to unfairly compete with advertisers, in a new assault on its business model.
Europe and Britain launched formal antitrust investigations into on Friday to determine if the world’s largest social network was using customer data to unfairly compete with advertisers, in a new assault on its business model. The separate moves open new fronts in Europe against the tech giant, whose platforms are used regularly by almost 3 billion people and which is accused of using its vast trove of ad data to better compete with companies from which it also collects data. The will assess whether Facebook violated EU competition law to unfairly compete in its Marketplace classified business, while the British regulator will also look at whether it is using the same tactic in its dating offering. «In today’s digital economy, data should not be used in ways that distort competition,» European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said. Vestager has already slapped more than 8 billion euros ($9.7 billion) in fines on unit and is also investigating and. The UK regulator is also examining Google and Apple. Launched in 2016, Facebook’s Marketplace is used in 70 countries to buy and sell items and has been under EU scrutiny since 2019.
