UK and EU Launch Coordinated Antitrust Probes Into Facebook
British and European regulators open simultaneous competition investigations into Facebook over allegations that the social network unfairly uses advertising data to boost its own services.
Regulators in the U.K. and the European Union launch formal, coordinated antitrust investigations into Facebook. The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority looks into whether Facebook abuses its dominant position in social media and digital advertising by unfairly leveraging collected ad data.
The CMA specifically examines how Facebook uses data from its advertising platform and the Facebook Login feature to benefit its own services like Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Dating. Authorities worry these practices give Facebook an unfair edge, making it harder for smaller competing firms to succeed and reducing customer choice.
Simultaneously, the European Commission investigates whether Facebook breaches EU competition rules by using data gathered from advertisers to compete against them in the classified ads sector. Regulators highlight that Facebook's massive scale involves collecting vast troves of data from nearly 3 billion monthly users, raising serious concerns about whether this information provides an undue competitive advantage.