Since 2021, the European Commission has been investigating potential anti-competitive practices by Meta in connection with the Facebook Marketplace. The American giant has lodged a complaint against the European institution, which it accuses of recovering a large amount of information not necessary for its investigation. Meta’s lawyer, Daniel Jowell, spoke on June 1 before five judges of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in connection with this complaint.
“The Commission acts like a huge fishing trawler »
Since 2019, the European Commission has been interested in how Meta favors the Facebook Marketplace over other sellers. The Commission’s regulatory authority suspects Meta of favoring the exposure of classified ads linked to its sales platform, to the detriment of merchants and advertisers present on the social network. The Commission asked the American giant to provide it with the necessary documents to support its suspicions.
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While Meta was dragging its feet to give the documents, the European institution finally opened an investigation in 2021. This allowed it to review its method of collecting information. The CJEU sentenced Meta to a daily fine of 8 million euros if he does not comply with the Commission’s requests. It was following this decision that Meta filed an appeal.
Facing the judges of the Court of Justice of the European Union, Meta’s lawyer explained on June 1 that ” the Commission acts like a huge fishing trawler that sucks up the entire seabed, hoping to unearth later the rare fish it finds in its vast nets “. A fisheries analogy in connection with the massive collection of documents carried out by the regulator. The lawyer adds that many of the documents recovered are ” totally off topic “.
Meta also denounces the technique used to select the information. According to the lawyer, the Commission searched a database provided by Meta using more than 2,500 different terms and phrases to filter the documents. Phrases like ” big question », « free ” and ” bad for us were searched for, reports Reuters.
Meta in the sights of European regulatory authorities
Giuseppe Conte, the lawyer for the European Commission, recalls that the method used by the regulator aims to investigate seven anti-competitive practices by Meta. In particular, the American firm is said to have misused data collected from advertisers to promote the classified ads on its Marketplace more effectively.
According to the lawyer, the European institution was forced to resort to this method of collection, because the number of documents provided by Meta was “ very limited », preventing the proper conduct of the investigations. The CJEU will decide in the coming months.
Meta is regularly targeted by European regulatory authorities. In the register of data protection, the firm suffered a fine of 17 billion euros from the Data Protection Commission, the Irish CNIL, for non-compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The entry into force of the Digital Services Acts (DSA) within the European Union will deal a great blow to the digital giants who will have an obligation of transparency in their use of data.