The European Commission will analyze whether the advertising information gives Facebook an undue competitive advantage.
The European Commission announced this Friday the opening of an investigation to determine whether Facebook violated competition rules regarding the use of data collected by advertising to improperly strengthen its commercial position.
The European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, said in a statement that “we will analyze in detail whether this information gives Facebook an undue competitive advantage”, especially in the segment of commercial advertisements made by individuals.
“Facebook is used by almost 3 billion people every month, and almost seven million companies run commercial ads on Facebook. Thus, Facebook collects huge amounts of data from the activities of users of its social networks, and that allows it to specifically target groups of users, “said Vestager.
In Vestager’s view, in the segment of commercial announcements made by individuals -which in the case of this social network is called Facebook Marketplace-, “Facebook also competes with companies from which it collects information. In today’s digital economy, information should not be used in ways that distort competition, “said Vestager.
In its statement, the European Commission indicated that it will examine “whether Facebook’s position in social networks and online advertising allows it to affect competition in neighboring markets, where Facebook is also active thanks to its social network, and in particular in the online ads ”.
