European Commission issues a warning to Facebook parent company Meta for violating EU antitrust regulations

The European Commission has warned Facebook parent company Meta that it is infringing EU antitrust regulations by restricting competition in online classified advertising and abusing its dominant position.

In a preliminary opinion, the Commission stated that it would investigate further and that a punishment of up to 10% of the company’s annual global turnover may be imposed.

The European Commission is concerned that Meta is imposing “unfair trading terms” on competitors of Facebook Marketplace, its own classified advertisements business.

In June of last year, the Commission opened an investigation into Facebook, focusing on whether the social network improperly utilises advertisers’ data to compete with them in the online classified advertisements industry.