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.”
