The European Commission will launch an official antitrust investigation into Facebook. It will assess whether Facebook has violated fair competition in the online advertising market.
it turns out EU representatives sent a questionnaire to Facebook and its competitors. The EU is asking whether Facebook violated the online advertising network by promoting its Marketplace service (allowing users to buy and sell goods on Facebook) for free to its 2 billion users.
Currently, Facebook is the only major American technology company that has not been subject to an antitrust investigation in the EU. Earlier, the European Union launched an investigation into Microsoft, Amazon, Apple and Google.
Three senior people familiar with the matter said a formal EU investigation into Facebook could be launched within days, although the timing is still being discussed and the scope of the investigation has yet to be finalized.
In response, the European Commission declined to comment, and Facebook has yet to comment. But it should be recalled previous statements by Facebook that the company develops services and products in compliance with EU legislation.
Not only the EU, not only Facebook
In fact, since 2019, the European Commission has been paying attention to Facebook's business practices and has opened two preliminary investigations against Facebook. Basically, it was about advertising and data services.
В одному з опитувань основна увага приділялася масивним даним, в той час, як в іншій – платформі онлайн-ринку (Marketplace), запущеній Facebook у 2016 році. 800 мільйонів користувачів приблизно в 70 країнах використовують цю платформу для купівлі та продажу товарів.
During the investigation, the European Union demanded a large amount of data from Facebook. The latter provided the European Commission with at least 315 documents totaling approximately 000 million pages. But Facebook later sued the European Commission, arguing that the data requested by the latter in the investigation was too broad and exceeded the necessary scope, which could harm the privacy of users.
However, this should be a fairly common occurrence for Facebook. We understand that the UK is also facing a separate antitrust investigation. The Competition and Markets Authority is investigating whether Facebook is using the data it collects to undermine competitors in online advertising.
Слід сказати, що Facebook – не єдина велика технологічна компанія, яку ЄС звинувачує. Зовсім недавно Маргрет Вестагер, виконавчий віцепрезидент ЄС, відповідальний за конкуренцію та цифрову політику, офіційно звинуватила Apple. Вона сказала, що Apple спотворює конкуренцію і стягує високі збори для конкурентних потокових послуг. Ще одна справа – ЄС минулого літа звинуватив Amazon, нібито він підірвав діяльність менших конкурентів на своїй платформі. ЄС вважає, що Coca-Cola також веде неконкурентоспроможну поведінку.
