Meta Fined $840 Million For Breaching EU Antitrust Rules

The European Union has fined Meta $840 million for unfairly tying its Facebook Marketplace classified ads service to its social network, marking the company's first EU antitrust penalty.

The European Commission ruled Meta must stop bundling Marketplace with Facebook's social platform and cease imposing unfair conditions on competing classified ads services. Regulators found Meta exploited Facebook's massive user base to disadvantage rivals and used competitors' advertising data to enhance Marketplace.

EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said Meta "tied its online classified ads service Facebook Marketplace to its personal social network Facebook and imposed unfair trading conditions on other online classified ads service providers."

Do any of these companies actually pay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of these fines seem quite large. Large enough to show up in quarterly earnings.. I hear about them being imposed all the time, but I never hear about them actually being paid.

Re:Do any of these companies actually pay?

[Pentium100]

Or, you know, the tech companies could actually comply with EU law if they want to do business in the EU.
If they chose not to then it means that the fine is less than it would cost (in expenses or lost revenue) to comply with the law, in which case it means the fine is too low.

Re:

[mrbester]

Lots were saying "up to 5% of global revenue from the previous year? That's way too high a fine, companies will just not operate in EU". It clearly isn't, as that doesn't seem to have altered the behaviour nor encouraged them to leave.

However, that up to 5% fine is just for the first time. Go ahead corporates, get another fine and be surprised to discover it's now 10%, 20%, whatever as you're a repeat offender and there is no maximum.

Re:

[colonslash]

Or, you know, the EU could stop using US companies as piggy banks, especially if they want good trade and diplomatic relations with the US.

Re:

[Pentium100]

Alternatively, if the EU laws do not apply to US companies, then maybe other EU laws should also not apply to US companies, for example, anyone could hack or defraud the US companies and as long as they do not go to the US it would be good.

I wonder how many EU companies are allowed to break the US laws...

Re:

[Growlley]

and oddly not a single one has packed up shop and pissed off

Re:

[Luckyo]

Under current Commission, not really. Under Kroes (previous relevant Commissioner) they did. Because Kroes was a corporate shark that hired her team on merit. Lots of white heterosexual men who were utterly superb at knowing details of law, and how to argue in court. And they were terrifying in court, and corporate side started to learn how to settle with them rather than try to fight it in courts when Kroes term as a Commissioner ran out.

Vestager, her replacement for the Commissioner post is the exact oppo

Re:

[Revek]

If this isn't sarcastic then you need to show us on the doll where Europe touched you.

Re:

[stabiesoft]

I don't think it is, I guess the gp never heard of ASML.

Re:

[dsgrntlxmply]

ASML incorporates Cymer laser technology from the US, European optical excellence, and immersion lithography proposed by Taiwan / US researcher Burn-Jeng Lin from work at IBM.

Europe also gives us the VW emissions scandal, the Luxottica eyeglass cartel, formerly honorable (paper production) and now Africa corruption perpetrator Bolloré, and Unilever cartelizing former American ice cream brands into frozen slime.

Re:

[thegarbz]

Yeah we know, American companies are just the pinnacle of responsible citizens. No one could name any American company who does Evil (TM).

On behalf of all of Europe I apologise, sarcastically, and mockingly.

Re:

[timeOday]

Well, what is going on? Why can't Europe compete with Silicon Valley? Even when they get the jump in some product area they end up getting eaten alive.

In 2013, the GDP of the US and EU were pretty close - $16.8 T vs $15.3 T.

Now it's $27 to $18 T.

That's a decade of near-stagnation in Europe while the US grew over 50%.

https://www.macrotrends.net/gl... [macrotrends.net]

https://www.macrotrends.net/gl... [macrotrends.net]

Re:

[sit1963nz]

That is because of BREXIT. Not stagnation.

Re:

[timeOday]

I don't know how they factor that into the EU GDP calculation (since there's no big dropoff in any single year of the data I linked), but taken by itself the U.K. is doing just as badly - in 2013 it was $2.8T and now it's (only) $3.3T - that's 18% cumulative, within 1% of what my link above showed for the EU as a whole.

https://www.macrotrends.net/gl... [macrotrends.net]

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Europe went from being the voice of reason to the mentally disturbed clown trying to rape and kill children.

OK, Ivan.

Seriously you guys need some new material, this shit only makes you look frothy.

Re:

[Valgrus Thunderaxe]

You missed your turn. The Trump rally is this way -------->

Re:

[iAmWaySmarterThanYou]

Are you seriously saying WW1 and WW2 were positives?

I hope your post is just sarcasm or trolling.

Europe does have a serious problem having been captured by the bureaucracy, although, we see far too much of that here, too.

Re:

[saloomy]

It doesn't read as a positive for me. It sounds derogatory as in Europe hasn't done good things, and on the contrary it has done bad things.

Re:

[iAmWaySmarterThanYou]

That's why I asked. It was unclear but I got the impression from context he meant them as pluses. The grammar was odd and vague.

Re:

[Luckyo]

A thread worth reading on the subject that discusses this very same issue but without pointless emotional rage baiting:

https://x.com/itsolelehmann/st... [x.com]

Re:

[thegarbz]

Your betters are speaking.

Oh where? I would love to go hear them than your drivel or whatever the USA is doing.

Useless fines

[iAmWaySmarterThanYou]

We are way past small fines for these trillion dollar companies.

Be it FB, MS, G, etc, just break them up. Enough is enough. These fines will not change their behavior.

Re:

[iAmWaySmarterThanYou]

Yes government has gotten too big but so have these companies.

Once they get this big innovation is dead. Using control of one vertical to take control of another is the definition of an anti-trust violation.

I want them to compete based on quality and innovation not just being bigger and bullying their way across the play field.

I'm not a fascist. I'm for the people. I vehemently disagree that "corporations are people". Terrible court ruling.

Re:

[sit1963nz]

You mean the people you can vote out ? Get rid of that and exactly what say do then have ?

You may also find that these corp[orations are not interest in your pensions, healthcare, education, etc etc, again who you gonna call..ghost busters ?

This is a bit of a stretch

[CEC-P]

I'm all about cracking down on abusive monopolies that have gone on long enough BUT, ebay + poshmark + letgo + craigslist and they think Facebook is unfairly competing? And a website that allows people to make posts also allows you to make posts for items for sale. OH NO, totally unrelated product and illegal oligopoly or whatever. I think they just wanted money. This is a very, very big stretch this time. Compare this to anything Microsoft has done with any of their products in the last 8 years and you hav

Re:

[thegarbz]

The EU isn't fining US companies. They are receiving 100% voluntary donations from US companies. The laws are there clearly written along with the price of breaching them. Breaking the law is entirely optional. Clearly the US companies just love to fund the far left agenda, maybe you should tell them to stop doing that.

The EU has found a new revenue source...

[rickb928]

...and they need it. Europe is going broke. Film at 11.