Image courtesy of Pete Pedroza on Unsplash
Over three years ago, the EU Commission began to investigate if Facebook (aka Meta) was imposing unfair trading rules. The EU’s Commission confirmed that Facebook/Meta did break the EU’s anti-trust rules and slapped the multinational social media giant with a $840 million fine.
The EU found that Meta’s dominate position was abused by the tech giant, because it gave itself an unfair advantage by leveraging its social media platform to its Facebook Marketplace. All Facebook users, whether they want it or not, are regularly and automatically exposed to Facebook Marketplace ads. Facebook essentially blocked its competition, which is an antitrust violation.
There’s a popular expression in the tech world: Move fast and break things. Now so much is needing to be fixed after it was broken without concern. In November, Facebook/Meta was ordered to cease this conduct and was fined close to $1 billion. Let’s see if this fine will correct the abusive behavior.
