Facebook Marketplace Accused Of Breaching EU's Antitrust Rules

Facebook Marketplace Accused Of Breaching EU's Antitrust Rules 

BY TYLER DURDEN TUESDAY, DEC 20, 2022 - 12:45 AM 

The EU's European Commission has accused Facebook Marketplace of breaching antitrust rules because the company dominates both social networks and an online classified ads market - and has been "distorting competition" by coupling the two services.

Specifically, the fact that "users of Facebook automatically have access to Facebook Marketplace, whether they want it or not," is of concern to the EU.

The alleged breach of antitrust rules comes in the form of a European Commission Statement of Objections released on Monday, which said it had informed Facebook parent Meta that a "preliminary view" deemed the company in violation.

A Statement of Objections is the first step the Commission takes when it begins an investigation into what it believes are a violation of E.U. antitrust rules. It does not mean the outcome has been predetermined.

But if an investigation concludes that antitrust rules have been violated, the Commission has the power to impose a fine of up to 10% of Meta’s annual worldwide turnover as well as a prohibition of further rule-breaking behavior. -Variety

"With its Facebook social network, Meta reaches globally billions of monthly users and millions active advertisers," said Margrethe Vestager, the Commission’s executive VP for competition policy. "Our preliminary concern is that Meta ties its dominant social network Facebook to its online classified ad services called Facebook Marketplace. This means Facebook users have no choice but to have access to Facebook Marketplace. Furthermore, we are concerned that Meta imposed unfair trading conditions, allowing it to use of data on competing online classified ad services. If confirmed, Meta’s practices would be illegal under our competition rules."

The report also raised concerns that Meta is imposing "unfair trading conditions" on Marketplace competitors who advertise on Facebook and Instagram via 'onerous terms and conditions,' which apparently also allow Meta to use data derived from competitors to benefit the Marketplace service - which would infringe on Article 102 of the EU's Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union.

The Commission says the length of the investigation will depend on various factors, including Meta's cooperation.

The news is the latest blow for beleaguered Meta, which announced last month it was laying-off thousands of staffers. Last June the E.U. launched another investigation into potential anti-competitive behavior by Facebook, which is still ongoing. Then in August, the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. filed an amended antitrust complaint against the company after its first was dismissed. -Variety

The move comes just months after the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) ordered Meta to sell Giphy, a provider of GIFs - forcing the company to unwind a $400 million acquisition.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/facebook-marketplace-accused-breaching-antitrust-rules

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Report: World’s 1st remote brain surgery via 5G network performed in China

World’s 1st remote brain surgery via 5G network performed in China Published time: 17 Mar, 2019 13:12 ·           A Chinese surgeon has performed the world’s first remote brain surgery using 5G technology, with the patient 3,000km away from the operating doctor. Dr. Ling Zhipei remotely implanted a neurostimulator into his patient’s brain on Saturday, Chinese state-run media  reports . The surgeon manipulated the instruments in the Beijing-based PLAGH hospital from a clinic subsidiary on the southern Hainan island, located 3,000km away. The surgery is said to have lasted three hours and ended successfully. The patient, suffering from Parkinson’s disease, is said to be feeling well after the pioneering operation. The doctor used a computer connected to the next-generation 5G network developed by Chinese tech giant Huawei. The new device enabled a near real-time connection, according to Dr. Ling.  “You barely feel that the patient is 3,000 kilometers away,”  he said.
Read more

BMW traps alleged thief by remotely locking him in car

BMW traps alleged thief by remotely locking him in car Stealer's Wheel? Seattle police department quotes "Watchmen" movie in a recap of the recent arrest. Tech Culture by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper December 4, 2016 5:00 PM PST It's maybe the most satisfying arrest we can imagine. Seattle police caught an alleged car thief by enlisting the help of car maker BMW to both track and then remotely lock the luckless criminal in the very car he was trying to steal. Jonah Spangenthal-Lee, deputy director of communications for the Seattle Police Department, posted a witty summary of the event on the SPD's blog on Wednesday. Turns out if you're inside a stolen car, it's perhaps not the best time to take a nap. "A car thief awoke from a sound slumber Sunday morning (Nov. 27) to find he had been remotely locked inside a stolen BMW, just as Seattle police officers were bearing down on him," Spangenthal-Lee wrote. The suspect found a ke
Read more

Visualizing The Power Of The World's Supercomputers

Visualizing The Power Of The World's Supercomputers   BY TYLER DURDEN FRIDAY, JAN 21, 2022 - 04:15 AM   A supercomputer is a machine that is built to handle billions, if not trillions of calculations at once. Each supercomputer is actually made up of many individual computers (known as nodes) that work together in parallel. A common metric for measuring the performance of these machines is  flops , or  floating point operations per second . In this visualization,  Visual Capitalist's Marcus Lu uses  November 2021 data from  TOP500  to visualize the computing power of the world’s top five supercomputers. For added context, a number of modern consumer devices were included in the comparison. Ranking by Teraflops Because supercomputers can achieve over one quadrillion flops, and consumer devices are much less powerful, we’ve used  teraflops  as our comparison metric. 1 teraflop = 1,000,000,000,000 (1 trillion) flops. Supercomputer Fugaku  was completed in March 202
Read more