European Commission Joins Meta Platform Inc., Concerning Violations Of The EU Antitrust Law

JAKARTA - The European Commission on Monday, December 19 said it had warned Facebook's parent company, Meta Platform Inc., that it had violated EU antitrust laws by distorting competition in the market for online row ads and abusing its dominant position.

The Commission said in the early view that it would investigate further and could impose fines of up to 10% of Meta's annual global turnover, if there was sufficient evidence of a violation of EU regulations.

"The claims made by the European Commission are baseless," Meta spokesman Tim Lamb said in a statement.

"We will continue to work with the authorities to show that our product innovation is pro-consuming and pro-competitive," Lamb added.

Sources familiar with the matter last month told Reuters that EU antitrust regulators are drafting charges against Meta over the use of customer data and the binding of its line advertising services to its social networks.

The commission said last Monday that Meta imposed an "unfair trade condition" on its own row ad service competitor, Facebook Marketplace, which wants to advertise on its social network Facebook or Instagram.

EU competition users launched an investigation into Facebook in June last year, focusing on whether the social network unfairly uses advertiser data to compete with them in the online row ad sector.