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Meta Hit With $844M Fine Over 'Abusive' Facebook Marketplace Practices

The European Commission says Facebook's parent company is undermining its rivals by embedding its classified ads platform within the social network.

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Headshot of Katie Collins
Katie Collins Principal Writer
Katie is a UK-based news reporter and features writer. Officially, she is CNET's European correspondent, covering tech policy and Big Tech in the EU and UK. Unofficially, she serves as CNET's Taylor Swift correspondent. You can also find her writing about tech for good, ethics and human rights, the climate crisis, robots, travel and digital culture. She was once described a "living synth" by London's Evening Standard for having a microchip injected into her hand.
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Facebook Marketplace is under fire in Europe.

 James Martin/CNET

Meta is in hot water in Europe once again. The European Competition Commission issued the Facebook and Instagram parent company with a fine on Thursday to the tune of 798 million euros ($843 million) over "abusive practices." 

At the heart of the issue is Meta's Facebook Marketplace classified ads platform, which is embedded within the social network. The Commission claims that this creates an uneven playing field for other service providers of classified ads, which don't have the advantage of being tied so closely to a network with such large reach. Facebook users get regular exposure to Marketplace, whereas competitor services must pay to advertise to Facebook users.

"Meta tied its online classified ads service Facebook Marketplace to its personal social network Facebook and imposed unfair trading conditions on other online classified ads service providers," said European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager in a statement. "It did so to benefit its own service Facebook Marketplace ... this is illegal under EU antitrust rules."

In addition to the fine, the Commission demanded Meta stop giving preference to Facebook Marketplace. 

Meta said it strongly disagrees with the Commission's decision, which it believes shows no evidence of harm, and plans to appeal. In a lengthy blog post, the company said the decision "ignores the realities of the thriving European market for online classified listing services and shields large incumbent companies from a new entrant, Facebook Marketplace, that meets consumer demand in innovative and convenient new ways."

This is far from Meta's first rodeo when it comes to navigating the complexities of European regulation. Earlier this week the company announced that it would be lowering the price of ad-free social media experiences in the region due to demands from European regulators. Meta has also not yet confirmed when it will be releasing its latest multimodal AI models in Europe, putting the delay down to the "the unpredictable nature of the European regulatory environment."