Double warning shot this Friday morning for Facebook.
Brussels and London simultaneously announced the opening of two investigations into alleged anti-competitive practices by the American social network.
The European regulator and the British regulator suspect Mark Zuckerberg's company of using advertising data, in particular collected from advertisers on its platforms, in order to compete with them in markets where Facebook is present.
Over 7 million businesses advertise their services on Facebook.
Read also: How Amazon became a champion of digital advertising
“
In today's digital economy, data cannot be used in a way that distorts competition,
” said Executive Vice President for Competition Policy Margrethe Vestager in a statement.
The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is also investigating whether Facebook is using the data it collects to harm its competitors in order to gain
"an unfair competitive advantage in online advertising and dating services. online
”.
“
We will work closely with the European Commission as we each investigate these issues.
We will also continue our coordination with other agencies to fight against these global problems
”, declared Andrea Coscelli, Director General of the CMA.
A focus on Facebook Marketplace
The European Union and the United Kingdom are looking in particular to determine whether the social network is
promoting its
online classifieds service “
Facebook Marketplace
” by promoting it free of charge to its 2.8 billion users worldwide. Launched in 2016, the Facebook Marketplace allows its users to sell or buy products at no cost. This “The Good Corner” Mark Zuckerberg version now attracts more than 250 million users per month. Almost a billion Facebook users have already used the portal.
In recent weeks, the European Commission sent the digital advertising giant and its rivals a detailed questionnaire to identify potential anti-competitive practices. “
Facebook collects a wealth of data on user activity on its social network and beyond, allowing it to target specific customer groups. We will examine in detail whether this data gives Facebook an unfair competitive advantage,
”says Margrethe Vestager.
In recent months, the Gafam have been accumulating legal proceedings around the world.
In the United States, Facebook and Google are also the subject of lawsuits launched by the Department of Justice and attorneys general in several states.
They suspect Google of manipulating the search results in its Search tool to control the prices of the online advertising market to the detriment of newspaper publishers in particular.
In 2020, Facebook, Google and Amazon shared nearly 80% of digital advertising revenue in the global market.
Digital now represents more than half of advertisers' investments.
