What they were found guilty of (was this even a trial?) seems like could apply to literally any business that participates in two markets.
>Tying its online classified ads service Facebook Marketplace to its personal social network Facebook. This means that all Facebook users automatically have access and get regularly exposed to Facebook Marketplace whether they want it or not.
You can accuse almost anything of that, it's like business 101. The European grocery store chains (aldi/lidl) tend to have a literal random shit aisle that exists to capitalize on this, and has for years.
And I always hate laws that seemingly make everyone guilty, and are going to inevitably come down to selective enforcement.
A retail store selling various kinds of retail goods and a Social Network embedding a Classified Ads service in their core offering are not remotely equivalent.
Will future tech companies bother making their products available in the EU? Will it be worth it, or is just too big of a risk with uncertain outcomes?
It's funny that there are two common and opposite narratives in HN comments for EU fines on tech companies. The is to claim that the fines are far too small, and the companies will happily just continue breaking the laws and treat the fines as a cost of doing business. The other is that the fines are so impractically huge that they're going to drive the companies out of the EU entirely.
Both narratives are just nonsense. The goal of the fines is to change product behavior immediately, and to act as a deterrent for illegal product changes in the future. The fines seem pretty well calibrated for that. $1 billion is real money even to Meta. They can't afford to ignore this and other similar issues, and will need to at least make an effort that looks like good faith enough to avoid the fines ratcheting up higher.
But on the other hand, Meta probably makes on the order of $10 billion / year in profit in the EU. They're not about to leave. Like, even in that one year (2018?) when Google ended up adding a separate line item for EU antitrust fines into their financial statements there was no chance they'd leave.
Except the change the EU is trying to encourage with this ruling is really absurdly dumb. It's clearly and transparently rent seeking.
We are already in a trade war and the only one that refuses to acknowledge it is the US. The US needs to embargo and deprive EU of the essential tech infrastructure they provide it. Just turn it off or brick it one day and leave the EU scrambling to catch up with 20+ years of stagnation and missing services and hardware.
Let's see how good it will be for the consumer when tech just leaves. Maybe then they'll change their regulations to something that works to enable technological progress and innovation.
And should the EU then compell SAP to retaliate in kind? You can argue the EU is more a serv than an ally to the US, but they still need them on their side.
The number of times you can pull a Nordstream are preciously limited.
Will future pharma companies bother with creating new drugs if they have to get FDA approval? Will engineering companies bother drafting new projects if they have to pass safety inspections?
Every other industry thrives despite regulations. It’ll be no different for future tech companies.
It's a large market, and more profitable than APAC and RoW per user (just look at the Meta investor presentations which show that it's US, followed by the EU then APAC and RoW[1]).
Telling that you think this is happening just because their products are available in the EU and not because they were "acting in a way that gave it a significant advantage over competitors" as the EU claims.
They have done a ton of advancement in AI. They also have to have the infrastructure to handle so many users. I feel like they fall squarely in the tech company world.
Should be interesting going forward once the Trump administration takes over. I'd imagine they aren't going to be happy with all of anti-American tech fines being levied.
It surprises me how many people here are against this decision, and expressing sentiment that this is bad for the EU tech scene.
Meta has been fined because they employed tactics to undermine competition and persistently employ anti-competitive tactics.
Why is it wrong for the EU to force companies to obey it's laws and act in the best interest of it's inhabitants?
The companies being targeted are some of the biggest companies in the world and are accountable to almost no-one. Because they're a monopoly they're somehow exempt from the rulebook? C'mon.
If anything this helps competitor businesses because it shows that the tech giants are not except for the law, and the EU will fight for competition. Something the US sorely lacks in many industries.
Do you live in the EU? From where I stand I mostly got cookie banners, can't get to Google maps or flights from Google search, get AI launches 6 months after the rest of the world if at all etc.. Not yet feeling all the consumer benefits
1) cookie banners are because tech giants are giants c-nts that will do anything to drive their point (and they are breaking the law because "reject" is usually hidden); though the UE should push to have it as a browser setting and voila - not nagging
2) there was a push for Google, as a monopolist, to offer option to use different map services but becase it's typical for the bully to abuse it's possition they removed the setting. And it seems to work as it causes the frustration in the end users.
It's kinda sad that people are still drinking google cool-aid
This is almost certainly untrue. But if it gives you a piece of mind, so be it.
> Facebook can no longer create shadow profiles for people who aren't on it.
What impact does Facebook not having a ledger with my name on it have on my life? You still have ads and tracking in Europe, except now with cookie banners.
> You can ask any company to tell you all they know about you, and delete it (with some small regulatory exceptions).
Have you ever done this?
> You don't have 50 different chargers in your home.
I don't need anyone telling me what types of devices to buy. I prefer competition and can make up my own mind about chargers. Role of the state is not de-cluttering my home.
I'd prefer Google Maps and free 2 day shipping to these. Not to mention $300k+ developer salaries compared to 55k a year. But I guess you don't have to check your emails after 5, so there's that.
> This is almost certainly untrue. But if it gives you a piece of mind, so be it.
If it is untrue, they'll get slapped in the face with another multi-billion dollar fine, and have to remove the offending models.
> Have you ever done this?
Yes, I do this regularly for backups, and have asked for sketchy orgs I've had to use to delete my data.
> I don't need anyone telling me what types of devices to buy. I prefer competition and can make up my own mind about chargers. Role of the state is not de-cluttering my home.
Do you also prefer competition and to make up your own mind about unsanitary food? Unsafe cars? Unsafe airliners and airlines? Where would you draw the line of what is acceptable role of the state?
> I'd prefer Google Maps and free 2 day shipping to these
Google Maps is still there. I have free 1 day, and sometimes same day shipping with Amazon in France, so idk what you're referring to.
> Do you also prefer competition and to make up your own mind about unsanitary food? Unsafe cars? Unsafe airliners and airlines? Where would you draw the line of what is acceptable role of the state?
Cables. I draw the line at cables. I think its a reasonable line to draw.
> Meta has been fined because they employed tactics to undermine competition and persistently employ anti-competitive tactics.
If you could list out the "employed tactics" that "undermine competition", that would be helpful in understanding your case. Marketplace ads seems like a natural extension of the Meta ad product, so it's not clear how this is anti-competitive. Any other marketplace can also run ads on Meta as well if they wanted.
Well... it's because HN community is only driven by VC money and disruptors and have absolutely no morals - just to abuse whatever the heck is possible to abuse so any notion of trying to regulate the "wild wild west" is to them like a total abuse... it's cute and amusing :)
The 'anti-competitive' practices make the product better. It keeps you in their ecosystem that is more trust worthy than third parties. For instance, I avoid the third party crap on Amazon that's not managed by them because they're usually awful, weird pricing almost like they're hoping someone accidentally buys it and shipping takes long.
Is it 'anti-competitive' that Amazon pushes their stuff? I don't really care, its just a better product for Amazon. If I wanted the third party crap, I'd go to eBay.
So a lot of these regulations that are supposed to promote competition actually make the product worse.
It's relevant, because the standard of evidence would be much higher if it's a criminal trial vs. if it's a commission deciding whether or not to hand out a fine, where they have sole authority to do so. Meta could still maintain that it has done nothing wrong, in which case the article is right (and correct) to use the word 'alleged', since that's not been disproven. If they'd said 'guilty', they could open themselves up to legal trouble. I know nothing about the facts of this situation, to be clear.
I suspect the latter part is so commonplace that many technologists don't even think twice about it.
> Unilaterally imposing unfair trading conditions on other online classified ads service providers who advertise on Meta's platforms, in particular on its very popular social networks Facebook and Instagram. This allows Meta to use ads-related data generated by other advertisers for the sole benefit of Facebook Marketplace.
Consider this:
- A local marketplace AcmeShop wants to advertise itself on Facebook, paying Facebook for ads.
- The only practical way to do so requires AcmeShop to install Facebook's tracking on their website. The tracking is always dual purpose: on the one hand, it gives AcmeShop data on conversion from their ads (which is vital for AcmeShop), but on the other it also gives Facebook data about AcmeShop users.
- Alice wants to buy a used 3D printer. She goes to AcmeShop, searches for 3D printers, checks a few listings out, but doesn't buy anything.
- Alice opens Facebook. At this point, Facebook registered Alice's visit to AcmeShop 3D printer listings, so of course they serve ads for 3D printers selling on Facebook Marketplace.
- Alice buys a used 3D printer from Facebook Marketplace, cutting AcmeShop out.
AcmeShop has a tough choice: they either advertise on Facebook, pay Facebook, and help Facebook to undermine their own business, or they forgo Facebook as a marketing channel altogether.
Usually different parts of this scenario are discussed in isolation (performance marketing, user tracking, privacy on Facebook, etc.), obscuring the larger picture. I don't see how Facebook's behaviour taken as a whole is anything but predatory and abusive of their position.
In your scenario, Alice already decided not to buy anything from AcmeShop.
Even if AcmeShop advertised on Facebook it wouldn't have changed her behavior. She got a better deal on Facebook Marketplace. And she was already visiting Facebook and the Marketplace is already a single click.
I don't see the abusive or predatory part. It seems like Facebook Marketplace just offered a superior used 3D printer for her.
It's one sided. Facebook have all the data for how AcmeShop's products are selling. They are free to use this information to undercut AcmeShop's products with data AcmeShop does not have on Facebook.
Yes, it's a better deal on the face of it, but as soon as AcmeShop goes out of business, competition is gone and Facebook can charge whatever they want. And we all know from the US markets that low to no competition does not benefit the consumer in any way.
Facebook Marketplace is a marketplace. They don't control the products that are being advertised. All they can control is the weighting of ads they run on certain products e.g. "AirPods are popular, increase ad spend to 20% of total".
But they could do this by simply optimising for ROAS just like every other company does.
If Facebook is sharing AcmeShop data with Marketplace, and it's a very big if, it would still be of almost no value.
They don't control the products that are being advertised, but they make personalised ads for Marketplace products more effective by using data they collect elsewhere. If the ads are more effective, Marketplace is better at shifting goods, undermining the competition because their competition is forced to share data with Facebook through Facebook's (not Marketplace's) market position.
> In your scenario, Alice already decided not to buy anything from AcmeShop.
Not really, that's exactly what "remarketing" ads are for — companies track people's interest and remind them of their products. However, in this case, Facebook is double dipping by taking money from their paying customer (AcmeShop), and then using data they obtained whilst serving their paying customer to frontrun the customer.
If you or I tried something like that with Facebook — say, taking salary from Facebook and also using data we accessed through our role to undermine Facebook's business — it'd clearly be both illegal and immoral. Somehow, with enough layers of indirection, for a lot of people the same play is acceptable when Facebook does it.
But I see "remarketing" ads everywhere. Google does it too.
How is Facebook showing remarketing ads for items on Facebook Marketplace, the ads paid for by a Marketplace seller who is boosting their item, any different from Google showing remarketing ads for items on eBay, paid for by an eBay seller?
Because that same thing would be happening if AcmeShop were using Google Analytics. Or if Alice had just done a Google search, which might be how she found AcmeShop in the first place.
Or are you arguing against remarketing ads entirely?
I guess I'm just having a hard time seeing any harm here because Alice visited AcmeShop first and didn't buy anything. Like, if I run a shop stall that sells frobulators, and I see someone pass by a nearby stall that also sells frobulators, and they browse but don't buy one, and after they leave I wave to them, and they buy one from me because I have the exact model they wanted... I don't see anything illegal or immoral at all. The first store already had their chance! If Alice liked their items, she would have already bought from there, or gone back there when she was ready to buy.
When Facebook is showing ads for items on Facebook Marketplace based on a customer visiting AcmeShop, for Facebook it's not "remarketing". It's only "remarketing" when AcmeShop does it. For Facebook, it's just targeting based on data they obtained during providing a paid service to AcmeShop. The customer didn't express interest but then abandon their purchase from Facebook yet.
Google doing the same thing is hardly a good excuse.
In your analogy, you don't just "see". You're employed by a nearby stall because you're one of the few plumbers in the town, so you're in that shop a lot, but you're also making photos of their customers and then use those photos to find them on the street and advertise your frobulators. You really don't see anything weird about this scenario?
Besides, if a shop has only one chance ever, what are remarketing ads (marketed by Facebook to businesses) for?
I thought you were suggesting this was remarketing, now you're saying it's just targeted advertising, are you saying targeted advertising is bad? Because AcmeShop is free to run targeted ads on Facebook too, whether remarketing or not.
I genuinely don't understand what you think Facebook is doing wrong here in having a targeted ads platform at the same time as running Marketplace. I don't see how doing the two together is abusive or predatory in a way that is different from doing those things as separate corporations.
- AcmeShop is paying Facebook money to run a targeted marketing campaign on Facebook
- to do this, in practice AcmeShop is forced to share visit data with Facebook (this bit could be done differently, but for some reason that's how Facebook does it)
- a customer goes to AcmeShop, doesn't make an immediate purchase, leaves
- AcmeShop is paying Facebook to run a remarketing campaign for that customer, showing them the same product leading to AcmeShop
- at the same time, Facebook is using information that they obtained in the process of providing paid services to AcmeShop to show goods on their marketplace platform to the customer. For Facebook, it's not "remarketing", it's just "marketing" at this point. Not only that, but they control which ads they are showing, and naturally with Marketplace-only placements Facebook has an advantage over AcmeShop (again, using information that they effectively forced AcmeShop to provide)
Does this reframing make the problem of Facebook being both an ad seller, an ad manager, and offering the same service as their customers any clearer?
Thanks for explaining. I think I've identified the part in your argument I don't understand:
> but they [Facebook] control which ads they are showing, and naturally with Marketplace-only placements Facebook has an advantage over AcmeShop
My question is, why do you think Facebook won't simply sell the ad space to the highest bidder, whether it is AcmeShop or a Marketplace seller? Why do you think Facebook is giving an advantage to Marketplace ads? Do you have any evidence they are?
Remember, Facebook doesn't even make money if you sell something locally and pay in cash. A big way that Marketplace makes money is through ads. But if AcmeShop is bidding more for ad space, then presumably Facebook will show the AcmeShop retargeting ad instead.
If there is evidence that Facebook is showing lower-bidding Marketplace ads over higher-bidding AcmeShop ads in your Instagram feed, because of the fee it takes on shipped items that use Facebook Marketplace Payments, then yes I agree that would definitely be an abuse of power! And thank you for explaining that -- if that is what you're saying.
But I think it has to be shown that Facebook is actually engaging in that kind of anti-competitive behavior. We can't just assume it. There's nothing inherently wrong with running the two businesses together.
(Also, if by "Marketplace-only placements" you're referring to boosting listings within Marketplace as opposed to more general ads like on Facebook, there's nothing preventing AcmeShop from listing and boosting its items on Marketplace as well.)
> why do you think Facebook won't simply sell the ad space to the highest bidder, whether it is AcmeShop or a Marketplace seller?
Depends on which placement you mean.
"Boosted listings" in Facebook Marketplace? AcmeShop can't bid on that.
In-Marketplace ads like [0]? They are similarly in-Marketplace, I don't think it's technically possible to bid on them.
In-feed Marketplace ads like [1]? They are specifically Marketplace, I have no evidence that they enter the same bidding pool, and it seems improbable.
In-feed generic auto-placed ads like [2]? Maybe, maybe not.
> Remember, Facebook doesn't even make money if you sell something locally and pay in cash.
Facebook doesn't just make money from boosted listings, they also benefit from people just using Facebook. Even if Facebook didn't make any money directly from Marketplace, it'd still be worth it for them and it'd still be anti-competitive. If they can make themselves the main marketplace, it creates a large captive audience scrolling through their ads.
> But I think it has to be shown that Facebook is actually engaging in that kind of anti-competitive behavior. We can't just assume it.
Aren't we commenting under an article about a fine for anti-competitive behaviour?
I think we've reached the point where it really does hinge on exact details which we don't really know the answers to. And while yes, we are commenting on an article about supposed anti-competitive behavior, the article doesn't actually describe the specifics at all, and courts get things wrong all the time (and overturned on appeal).
I mean, AcmeShop is free to list their items on Marketplace as well and compete with boosted ads in cases [0] and [1], and like you say, "maybe, maybe not" their ads compete on bids for [2] -- I would assume they would if Facebook is maximizing profit.
I don't see any evidence that Facebook is obviously or necessarily abusing its position, but it's not like I could rule it out either, specifically in the case of [2] -- it seems like it depends on the exact ad selection algorithm they use.
In any case, I can't keep the conversation going any further, but it's been very informative having this exchange. It's been a great back-and-forth, so thank you!
It's 100% predatory. I hope we will see similar cases brought against Amazon soon (if they haven't been already).
The fact that so many companies are dependent on selling on Amazon, yet Amazon also sells their own products, is ludicrous.
- AcmeShop sells 3d printers and sell on Amazon
- Amazon sees these printers are selling well
- Amazon buys/creates their own 3d printer brand
- Amazon gives their own products preferencial treatment and uses all it's data for how AcmeShop's printers are selling to undercut them in all markets
- AcmeShop goes out of business because unaware consumers buy what, on the surface, is a better deal
- With no competition Amazon increases it's prices to whatever it likes
If no, then people will lose trust on Amazon over time and will use other shopping platforms. So Amazon is basically trading short-term profit for long-term profit.
Consumers win when there is continued competition. Short term, sure, consumers get a better printer, but once Amazon has taken over the market where is the drive to make anything better or cheaper? It's competition 101..
I think a lot of American's have lost trust in AT&T, Time Warner Cable, but it doesn't meant they're not forced to use them.
If you control the pipes you should not be allowed to also sell the water in those pipes. You will always be in a far greater position to take advantage and become a monopoly, which, is well documented, hurts consumers.
Every big retailer has its own house brand. There is nothing special about a big retailer using their sales data to make decisions on house branding.
No they cannot adjust their pricing to whatever they like because Amazon is not a monopoly. People can buy stuff elsewhere. If Amazon pricing is bad, people will leave and it will kill Amazon.
"Normal" online advertising is neutral with respect to companies bidding on placements. Not so much with Facebook, which is under no obligation to run a bid on every ad they serve. Some of those ads are dedicated Marketplace ads, and AcmeShop can't bid on them, or even limit access to the data that Facebook collected while performing their contractual duties to AcmeShop.
I wonder if the next administration will put a stop to this EU trade war against US Big Tech, or if they will let specific companies (e.g. Meta & Google) continue to suffer due to a (perceived or real) bias against that admin during their 2016-2020 tenure and their political campaigns.
I imagine at the very least that the company formerly known as Twitter will be protected.
However, it is not clear that this is not in balance already. The discussion thread seems to believe that the EU is being harsher to the US than the other way around.
I can tell you that a lot of the EU hope the same - at this point MS teams has become a meme of poor quality - but because of the MS monopoly, it is not possible to compete
And because of the US' blatant lack of antitrust initiatives, probably because of the leverage it affords the US, everybody are forced this garbage upon them.
> I can tell you that a lot of the EU hope the same
This is because 99.99% of people in the EU have zero understanding of how heavily reliant they are on American big tech under the hood. Nearly every piece of technology or every running service in the EU relies on it.
I guarantee you most EU citizens don't want YouTube, Google Maps, Google Search, everything running on AWS/Azure/GCP, everything reliant on Intel/Nvidia IP, etc taken away from them.
> blatant lack of antitrust initiatives
The fact of the matter is that the EU model does not work. If we adopted it, we'd be 20 years behind in tech, as evidenced by the sheer stagnation in the EU.
The EU is great at academic research and has absolutely shot itself in the foot when it comes to industrializing any of it in the tech space. Your best engineers and companies often simply move here after they get sick of being underpaid or hamstrung.
You are completely right - whenever you sidestep free market principles a nation can get ahead. Just like China constantly do it. This works until it doesn't anymore.
Another classic case of European bureaucrats raiding the piggy jar of US tech companies.
Like, obviously, marketplace is tied to Facebook the social network. It's how they authenticate sellers are real people and connect them to nearby people. It does a huge disservice to consumers to try to disconnect the two.
> It does a huge disservice to consumers to try to disconnect the two.
That isn't what is happening here. They are being fined for preferential treatment to their own service on their platform. That isn't the same thing as you're saying.
But why would Facebook not have the right to show Facebook Marketplace on their own platform? Is Facebook not allowed to add features to their app? Is Facebook Group an unfair competitor to other online forums? Who decide what features are allowed?
This is what drives me nuts with so many of these EU antitrust articles lately.
They're clear about the fine, but then it's all handwavy language about what a concrete violation even looks like. So it's impossible to even have an opinion because nobody even knows what we're actually talking about.
Best I could gather from the article is that this has something to do with paid ads on Facebook and Instagram that link to Marketplace vs. paid ads that link to other similar services (like eBay I'm guessing?), and that there's something extra-special about the Marketplace ads that the eBay ads don't have. But what even is the special thing? And is the article even accurate on this? Because it also refers to Marketplace listings as "ads" so it's not easy to parse.
US Tech companies are completely free not to do business in Europe. That the US ignores some big antitrust issues doesn't mean Europe has to do the same.
Here it deals with the fact that in that area Meta is both a platform provider and a player in said platform, and that they take advantage of the former to hamper competitors. I can't see how it's related to what you're suggesting.
Another classic case of US Tech Companies 'disrupting first, apologising later' by ignoring Consumer protection legislation when it suits their bottom line.
And anyway the EU never had specific legislation at the time Marketplace was introduced hence why they are having to use the EEA agreement as the basis for their actions. Which is basically a generic "do nothing bad" clause.
It has everything to do with Consumer protection. Meta tied its online classified ad business to its social network, automatically exposing Facebook users to Marketplace without any question of consent.
It then exacerbated this by imposing unfair trading conditions with a terms of service that authorised the company to use ad-related data — generated from competitors who advertise on Facebook or Instagram — to benefit Marketplace.
The reason the use EEA legislation is presumably because Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway are EEA but not EU states, but fall under scope here.
EU is becoming a very difficult place to do business.
Marketplace was introduced in 2007, 15 years before the DMA set the guidance for the regulatory landscape.
At the time there was no indiction that simply adding a popular and somewhat obvious feature would be seen as anti-competitive given that other classified ad platforms existed and were seemingly doing well.
You have to wonder how many companies will be reluctant to bring new features to EU in the future.
This isn't even remotely what happened here. Similar to the case where Apple was fined, Meta had years to comply with the new regulations — they simply chose not to and put their fingers in their ears instead. It's naive to think Meta didn't know it was breaking the law, they simply hoped they could get away with a fine that was smaller than the profit made.
> Meta had years to comply with the new regulations
This has nothing to do with the DMA if that's what you mean.
EU is alleging Meta is infringing on the 1994 EEA Agreement specifically the generic "don't impose unfair trading conditions" clause. Which if it successful should frighten most companies. Because making life harder for your competitors is the entire point of business.
If Zuck is to be believed, he's not about making life harder for competitors, he's about competing vigorously.
If you leverage your business, and data obtained for other reasons, to unfairly depress competition, the end user loses out, and is part of why antitrust legislation exists.
Another example is what Amazon were accused of - using their internal data from providing seller services to then decide which products to launch in their Amazon Basics range - to the point where it makes those other products no longer profitable to sell, and an option for consumers is removed.
If they conducted research without using that data about what products people would like, that's different - that's competing vigorously and fairly.
"If you leverage your business, and data obtained for other reasons, to unfairly depress competition, the end user loses out, and is part of why antitrust legislation exists."
This is the most salient point on the thread. People are studiously refusing to frame the discussion around this as pro-consumer, and prefer to maintain that it's nothing more than a proxy success-tax on BigTech.
Yes, the legislative landscape changes - just because you had fists from before it became illegal to hit people it doesn't mean that you are entitled to do so.
Also: One should expect Facebook given 3 years to comply would be able to do so.
This is not what the issue is about. The problem is that Meta is giving preference to their own ads over third party ads, not that the platforms reference one another.
Tying its online classified ads service Facebook Marketplace to its personal social network Facebook. This means that all Facebook users automatically have access and get regularly exposed to Facebook Marketplace whether they want it or not. The Commission found that competitors of Facebook Marketplace may be foreclosed as the tie gives Facebook Marketplace a substantial distribution advantage which competitors cannot match.
This is exactly what we're talking about. EU is basically saying that Facebook.com, just by having a marketplace feature is already breaking the law.
Unilaterally imposing unfair trading conditions on other online classified ads service providers who advertise on Meta's platforms, in particular on its very popular social networks Facebook and Instagram. This allows Meta to use ads-related data generated by other advertisers for the sole benefit of Facebook Marketplace.
They employ a bunch of the smartest people in the world - who all probably want to do legal stuff. I am sure they can figure out what to do to follow the law in the jurisdictions they work in.
I’d respectfully put it to you that you don’t seem to actually understand how any of this works. You picked two examples that have nothing to do with the accusation of “protectionism”.
I think EU is just building Meta’s monopolistic moat. It creates a chilling effect on challenger tech companies who may not be able to pay these fines. And yet they still know they might be arbitrarily fined.
Oh the other hand, one might say — “don’t be monopolistic and you won’t have to pay the fines”. But does this stand up under scrutiny? But how does a company compete with a monopoly without having any monopolistic traits? Duopolies by definition are very close to monopolies.
It’s like the EU is saying “no one be like these guys, but please would someone compete with them for the sake of our market!”
Gift URL: https://www.wsj.com/tech/eu-fines-meta-843-million-over-mark...
Official release: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...
What they were found guilty of (was this even a trial?) seems like could apply to literally any business that participates in two markets.
>Tying its online classified ads service Facebook Marketplace to its personal social network Facebook. This means that all Facebook users automatically have access and get regularly exposed to Facebook Marketplace whether they want it or not.
You can accuse almost anything of that, it's like business 101. The European grocery store chains (aldi/lidl) tend to have a literal random shit aisle that exists to capitalize on this, and has for years.
And I always hate laws that seemingly make everyone guilty, and are going to inevitably come down to selective enforcement.
A retail store selling various kinds of retail goods and a Social Network embedding a Classified Ads service in their core offering are not remotely equivalent.
No, the social network with the classifieds service is much better.
The reason it's so good is that it has real people's identities tied to the listings. That massively decreases issues around scams and safety.
I want those things to be connected. I don't want regulations that make that illegal. That's the opposite of progress and consumer benefit.
> The reason it's so good is that it has real people's identities tied to the listings. That massively decreases issues around scams and safety.
Facebook Marketplace is infested with all sorts of scams. It's not the worst, but scams aren't exactly rare, either.
Or they could just require ID for sales, just like every physical business who has to know who their so called marketplace partners are.
These aren't business marketplaces. These are more like classifieds, like Craigslist.
Nobody wants to share their ID with a stranger, especially because how would you even know if it was real?
But when you click through and they're part of a genuine social network and Facebook shows you have a mutual friend, that's pretty good social proof.
I mean for them to share their ID with Facebook.
Facebook already has ads, this is just another kind of ad.
See how it comes entirely down to interpretation?
Will future tech companies bother making their products available in the EU? Will it be worth it, or is just too big of a risk with uncertain outcomes?
It's funny that there are two common and opposite narratives in HN comments for EU fines on tech companies. The is to claim that the fines are far too small, and the companies will happily just continue breaking the laws and treat the fines as a cost of doing business. The other is that the fines are so impractically huge that they're going to drive the companies out of the EU entirely.
Both narratives are just nonsense. The goal of the fines is to change product behavior immediately, and to act as a deterrent for illegal product changes in the future. The fines seem pretty well calibrated for that. $1 billion is real money even to Meta. They can't afford to ignore this and other similar issues, and will need to at least make an effort that looks like good faith enough to avoid the fines ratcheting up higher.
But on the other hand, Meta probably makes on the order of $10 billion / year in profit in the EU. They're not about to leave. Like, even in that one year (2018?) when Google ended up adding a separate line item for EU antitrust fines into their financial statements there was no chance they'd leave.
Except the change the EU is trying to encourage with this ruling is really absurdly dumb. It's clearly and transparently rent seeking.
We are already in a trade war and the only one that refuses to acknowledge it is the US. The US needs to embargo and deprive EU of the essential tech infrastructure they provide it. Just turn it off or brick it one day and leave the EU scrambling to catch up with 20+ years of stagnation and missing services and hardware.
Let's see how good it will be for the consumer when tech just leaves. Maybe then they'll change their regulations to something that works to enable technological progress and innovation.
And should the EU then compell SAP to retaliate in kind? You can argue the EU is more a serv than an ally to the US, but they still need them on their side.
The number of times you can pull a Nordstream are preciously limited.
GP forgot this narrative where breaking laws enables technological progress and innovation.
Please, do it :D
> Except the change the EU is trying to encourage with this ruling is really absurdly dumb. It's clearly and transparently rent seeking.
No it's not. It's as any other regulation that tries to prevent overusing ones power.
Will future pharma companies bother with creating new drugs if they have to get FDA approval? Will engineering companies bother drafting new projects if they have to pass safety inspections?
Every other industry thrives despite regulations. It’ll be no different for future tech companies.
It's a large market, and more profitable than APAC and RoW per user (just look at the Meta investor presentations which show that it's US, followed by the EU then APAC and RoW[1]).
[1] https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2024/q3...
The slide I see says _revenue_. I think you have to consider cost of revenue too, and these EU fines affect that.
So if the EU goes to fines being "% of worldwide turnover"... do the math
Telling that you think this is happening just because their products are available in the EU and not because they were "acting in a way that gave it a significant advantage over competitors" as the EU claims.
Except for VR headsets, I reject the notion that facebook/meta is a "tech" company.
They have done a ton of advancement in AI. They also have to have the infrastructure to handle so many users. I feel like they fall squarely in the tech company world.
It is a much bigger risk to leave the market and to potentially gain a scary competitor.
For Facebook for sure, as they are eating the lunch of local medias by being able to serve smaller advertisers with more targeted campaigns.
The outcome is only uncertain because they are blatantly ignoring the laws.
Should be interesting going forward once the Trump administration takes over. I'd imagine they aren't going to be happy with all of anti-American tech fines being levied.
It surprises me how many people here are against this decision, and expressing sentiment that this is bad for the EU tech scene.
Meta has been fined because they employed tactics to undermine competition and persistently employ anti-competitive tactics.
Why is it wrong for the EU to force companies to obey it's laws and act in the best interest of it's inhabitants?
The companies being targeted are some of the biggest companies in the world and are accountable to almost no-one. Because they're a monopoly they're somehow exempt from the rulebook? C'mon.
If anything this helps competitor businesses because it shows that the tech giants are not except for the law, and the EU will fight for competition. Something the US sorely lacks in many industries.
Do you live in the EU? From where I stand I mostly got cookie banners, can't get to Google maps or flights from Google search, get AI launches 6 months after the rest of the world if at all etc.. Not yet feeling all the consumer benefits
I do live in the EU.
1) cookie banners are because tech giants are giants c-nts that will do anything to drive their point (and they are breaking the law because "reject" is usually hidden); though the UE should push to have it as a browser setting and voila - not nagging
2) there was a push for Google, as a monopolist, to offer option to use different map services but becase it's typical for the bully to abuse it's possition they removed the setting. And it seems to work as it causes the frustration in the end users.
It's kinda sad that people are still drinking google cool-aid
Your pictures weren't used to train AI models.
Facebook can no longer create shadow profiles for people who aren't on it and thus can't consent.
You can ask any company to tell you all they know about you, and delete it (with some small regulatory exceptions).
You don't have 50 different chargers in your home.
And a million other things.
> Your pictures weren't used to train AI models.
This is almost certainly untrue. But if it gives you a piece of mind, so be it.
> Facebook can no longer create shadow profiles for people who aren't on it.
What impact does Facebook not having a ledger with my name on it have on my life? You still have ads and tracking in Europe, except now with cookie banners.
> You can ask any company to tell you all they know about you, and delete it (with some small regulatory exceptions).
Have you ever done this?
> You don't have 50 different chargers in your home.
I don't need anyone telling me what types of devices to buy. I prefer competition and can make up my own mind about chargers. Role of the state is not de-cluttering my home.
I'd prefer Google Maps and free 2 day shipping to these. Not to mention $300k+ developer salaries compared to 55k a year. But I guess you don't have to check your emails after 5, so there's that.
Funny enough I have free next day shipping (or even same day if order in the morning) and I'm in the UE. Magic!
> This is almost certainly untrue. But if it gives you a piece of mind, so be it.
If it is untrue, they'll get slapped in the face with another multi-billion dollar fine, and have to remove the offending models.
> Have you ever done this?
Yes, I do this regularly for backups, and have asked for sketchy orgs I've had to use to delete my data.
> I don't need anyone telling me what types of devices to buy. I prefer competition and can make up my own mind about chargers. Role of the state is not de-cluttering my home.
Do you also prefer competition and to make up your own mind about unsanitary food? Unsafe cars? Unsafe airliners and airlines? Where would you draw the line of what is acceptable role of the state?
> I'd prefer Google Maps and free 2 day shipping to these
Google Maps is still there. I have free 1 day, and sometimes same day shipping with Amazon in France, so idk what you're referring to.
> Do you also prefer competition and to make up your own mind about unsanitary food? Unsafe cars? Unsafe airliners and airlines? Where would you draw the line of what is acceptable role of the state?
Cables. I draw the line at cables. I think its a reasonable line to draw.
Then why don’t you exercise your personal preferences by moving to the US?
You realize Europeans can't just "move to the US"?
Like you have to get a work visa or green card which can be extremely difficult.
There are a ton of Europeans who would love to move to the US and can't.
Are you trying to suggest Europeans shouldn't complain about the EU? Because that seems... backwards.
> Like you have to get a work visa or green card which can be extremely difficult.
Darn... so the US is not the land of the free? Gosh! Wait till you learn about all the other stuff you can't do there xD
I personally think there is a difference between what DMA laws says and what people think is fair.
> Meta has been fined because they employed tactics to undermine competition and persistently employ anti-competitive tactics.
If you could list out the "employed tactics" that "undermine competition", that would be helpful in understanding your case. Marketplace ads seems like a natural extension of the Meta ad product, so it's not clear how this is anti-competitive. Any other marketplace can also run ads on Meta as well if they wanted.
Well... it's because HN community is only driven by VC money and disruptors and have absolutely no morals - just to abuse whatever the heck is possible to abuse so any notion of trying to regulate the "wild wild west" is to them like a total abuse... it's cute and amusing :)
The 'anti-competitive' practices make the product better. It keeps you in their ecosystem that is more trust worthy than third parties. For instance, I avoid the third party crap on Amazon that's not managed by them because they're usually awful, weird pricing almost like they're hoping someone accidentally buys it and shipping takes long.
Is it 'anti-competitive' that Amazon pushes their stuff? I don't really care, its just a better product for Amazon. If I wanted the third party crap, I'd go to eBay.
So a lot of these regulations that are supposed to promote competition actually make the product worse.
Seems similar to a lesson alphabet learned in the EU a while back.
The EU alleged ...
well they were found guilty.
Was it a criminal trial?
Just a comment on the partisan language used.
It's relevant, because the standard of evidence would be much higher if it's a criminal trial vs. if it's a commission deciding whether or not to hand out a fine, where they have sole authority to do so. Meta could still maintain that it has done nothing wrong, in which case the article is right (and correct) to use the word 'alleged', since that's not been disproven. If they'd said 'guilty', they could open themselves up to legal trouble. I know nothing about the facts of this situation, to be clear.
Also Facebook doesn’t deny what they did. They just think it is unfair to fine them.
I suspect the latter part is so commonplace that many technologists don't even think twice about it.
> Unilaterally imposing unfair trading conditions on other online classified ads service providers who advertise on Meta's platforms, in particular on its very popular social networks Facebook and Instagram. This allows Meta to use ads-related data generated by other advertisers for the sole benefit of Facebook Marketplace.
Consider this:
- A local marketplace AcmeShop wants to advertise itself on Facebook, paying Facebook for ads.
- The only practical way to do so requires AcmeShop to install Facebook's tracking on their website. The tracking is always dual purpose: on the one hand, it gives AcmeShop data on conversion from their ads (which is vital for AcmeShop), but on the other it also gives Facebook data about AcmeShop users.
- Alice wants to buy a used 3D printer. She goes to AcmeShop, searches for 3D printers, checks a few listings out, but doesn't buy anything.
- Alice opens Facebook. At this point, Facebook registered Alice's visit to AcmeShop 3D printer listings, so of course they serve ads for 3D printers selling on Facebook Marketplace.
- Alice buys a used 3D printer from Facebook Marketplace, cutting AcmeShop out.
AcmeShop has a tough choice: they either advertise on Facebook, pay Facebook, and help Facebook to undermine their own business, or they forgo Facebook as a marketing channel altogether.
Usually different parts of this scenario are discussed in isolation (performance marketing, user tracking, privacy on Facebook, etc.), obscuring the larger picture. I don't see how Facebook's behaviour taken as a whole is anything but predatory and abusive of their position.
Can you clarify the abusive part?
In your scenario, Alice already decided not to buy anything from AcmeShop.
Even if AcmeShop advertised on Facebook it wouldn't have changed her behavior. She got a better deal on Facebook Marketplace. And she was already visiting Facebook and the Marketplace is already a single click.
I don't see the abusive or predatory part. It seems like Facebook Marketplace just offered a superior used 3D printer for her.
So what part am I missing?
It's one sided. Facebook have all the data for how AcmeShop's products are selling. They are free to use this information to undercut AcmeShop's products with data AcmeShop does not have on Facebook.
Yes, it's a better deal on the face of it, but as soon as AcmeShop goes out of business, competition is gone and Facebook can charge whatever they want. And we all know from the US markets that low to no competition does not benefit the consumer in any way.
None of this makes any sense.
Facebook Marketplace is a marketplace. They don't control the products that are being advertised. All they can control is the weighting of ads they run on certain products e.g. "AirPods are popular, increase ad spend to 20% of total".
But they could do this by simply optimising for ROAS just like every other company does.
If Facebook is sharing AcmeShop data with Marketplace, and it's a very big if, it would still be of almost no value.
They don't control the products that are being advertised, but they make personalised ads for Marketplace products more effective by using data they collect elsewhere. If the ads are more effective, Marketplace is better at shifting goods, undermining the competition because their competition is forced to share data with Facebook through Facebook's (not Marketplace's) market position.
I'm still not following.
Facebook isn't setting prices on Marketplace -- sellers like you and me are. We're not getting any data from AcmeShop.
When you say "Yes, it's a better deal on the face of it", I don't know what "deal" you're talking about.
> In your scenario, Alice already decided not to buy anything from AcmeShop.
Not really, that's exactly what "remarketing" ads are for — companies track people's interest and remind them of their products. However, in this case, Facebook is double dipping by taking money from their paying customer (AcmeShop), and then using data they obtained whilst serving their paying customer to frontrun the customer.
If you or I tried something like that with Facebook — say, taking salary from Facebook and also using data we accessed through our role to undermine Facebook's business — it'd clearly be both illegal and immoral. Somehow, with enough layers of indirection, for a lot of people the same play is acceptable when Facebook does it.
But I see "remarketing" ads everywhere. Google does it too.
How is Facebook showing remarketing ads for items on Facebook Marketplace, the ads paid for by a Marketplace seller who is boosting their item, any different from Google showing remarketing ads for items on eBay, paid for by an eBay seller?
Because that same thing would be happening if AcmeShop were using Google Analytics. Or if Alice had just done a Google search, which might be how she found AcmeShop in the first place.
Or are you arguing against remarketing ads entirely?
I guess I'm just having a hard time seeing any harm here because Alice visited AcmeShop first and didn't buy anything. Like, if I run a shop stall that sells frobulators, and I see someone pass by a nearby stall that also sells frobulators, and they browse but don't buy one, and after they leave I wave to them, and they buy one from me because I have the exact model they wanted... I don't see anything illegal or immoral at all. The first store already had their chance! If Alice liked their items, she would have already bought from there, or gone back there when she was ready to buy.
When Facebook is showing ads for items on Facebook Marketplace based on a customer visiting AcmeShop, for Facebook it's not "remarketing". It's only "remarketing" when AcmeShop does it. For Facebook, it's just targeting based on data they obtained during providing a paid service to AcmeShop. The customer didn't express interest but then abandon their purchase from Facebook yet.
Google doing the same thing is hardly a good excuse.
In your analogy, you don't just "see". You're employed by a nearby stall because you're one of the few plumbers in the town, so you're in that shop a lot, but you're also making photos of their customers and then use those photos to find them on the street and advertise your frobulators. You really don't see anything weird about this scenario?
Besides, if a shop has only one chance ever, what are remarketing ads (marketed by Facebook to businesses) for?
I think you've lost me.
I thought you were suggesting this was remarketing, now you're saying it's just targeted advertising, are you saying targeted advertising is bad? Because AcmeShop is free to run targeted ads on Facebook too, whether remarketing or not.
I genuinely don't understand what you think Facebook is doing wrong here in having a targeted ads platform at the same time as running Marketplace. I don't see how doing the two together is abusive or predatory in a way that is different from doing those things as separate corporations.
Alright, let's reframe this:
- AcmeShop is paying Facebook money to run a targeted marketing campaign on Facebook
- to do this, in practice AcmeShop is forced to share visit data with Facebook (this bit could be done differently, but for some reason that's how Facebook does it)
- a customer goes to AcmeShop, doesn't make an immediate purchase, leaves
- AcmeShop is paying Facebook to run a remarketing campaign for that customer, showing them the same product leading to AcmeShop
- at the same time, Facebook is using information that they obtained in the process of providing paid services to AcmeShop to show goods on their marketplace platform to the customer. For Facebook, it's not "remarketing", it's just "marketing" at this point. Not only that, but they control which ads they are showing, and naturally with Marketplace-only placements Facebook has an advantage over AcmeShop (again, using information that they effectively forced AcmeShop to provide)
Does this reframing make the problem of Facebook being both an ad seller, an ad manager, and offering the same service as their customers any clearer?
Thanks for explaining. I think I've identified the part in your argument I don't understand:
> but they [Facebook] control which ads they are showing, and naturally with Marketplace-only placements Facebook has an advantage over AcmeShop
My question is, why do you think Facebook won't simply sell the ad space to the highest bidder, whether it is AcmeShop or a Marketplace seller? Why do you think Facebook is giving an advantage to Marketplace ads? Do you have any evidence they are?
Remember, Facebook doesn't even make money if you sell something locally and pay in cash. A big way that Marketplace makes money is through ads. But if AcmeShop is bidding more for ad space, then presumably Facebook will show the AcmeShop retargeting ad instead.
If there is evidence that Facebook is showing lower-bidding Marketplace ads over higher-bidding AcmeShop ads in your Instagram feed, because of the fee it takes on shipped items that use Facebook Marketplace Payments, then yes I agree that would definitely be an abuse of power! And thank you for explaining that -- if that is what you're saying.
But I think it has to be shown that Facebook is actually engaging in that kind of anti-competitive behavior. We can't just assume it. There's nothing inherently wrong with running the two businesses together.
(Also, if by "Marketplace-only placements" you're referring to boosting listings within Marketplace as opposed to more general ads like on Facebook, there's nothing preventing AcmeShop from listing and boosting its items on Marketplace as well.)
> why do you think Facebook won't simply sell the ad space to the highest bidder, whether it is AcmeShop or a Marketplace seller?
Depends on which placement you mean.
"Boosted listings" in Facebook Marketplace? AcmeShop can't bid on that.
In-Marketplace ads like [0]? They are similarly in-Marketplace, I don't think it's technically possible to bid on them.
In-feed Marketplace ads like [1]? They are specifically Marketplace, I have no evidence that they enter the same bidding pool, and it seems improbable.
In-feed generic auto-placed ads like [2]? Maybe, maybe not.
> Remember, Facebook doesn't even make money if you sell something locally and pay in cash.
Facebook doesn't just make money from boosted listings, they also benefit from people just using Facebook. Even if Facebook didn't make any money directly from Marketplace, it'd still be worth it for them and it'd still be anti-competitive. If they can make themselves the main marketplace, it creates a large captive audience scrolling through their ads.
> But I think it has to be shown that Facebook is actually engaging in that kind of anti-competitive behavior. We can't just assume it.
Aren't we commenting under an article about a fine for anti-competitive behaviour?
[0]: https://storage.googleapis.com/website-production/uploads/20...
[1]: https://newsfeed.org/wp-content/uploads/Marketplace_boosted_...
[2]: https://storage.googleapis.com/website-production/uploads/20...
Thanks for all the extra information.
I think we've reached the point where it really does hinge on exact details which we don't really know the answers to. And while yes, we are commenting on an article about supposed anti-competitive behavior, the article doesn't actually describe the specifics at all, and courts get things wrong all the time (and overturned on appeal).
I mean, AcmeShop is free to list their items on Marketplace as well and compete with boosted ads in cases [0] and [1], and like you say, "maybe, maybe not" their ads compete on bids for [2] -- I would assume they would if Facebook is maximizing profit.
I don't see any evidence that Facebook is obviously or necessarily abusing its position, but it's not like I could rule it out either, specifically in the case of [2] -- it seems like it depends on the exact ad selection algorithm they use.
In any case, I can't keep the conversation going any further, but it's been very informative having this exchange. It's been a great back-and-forth, so thank you!
It's 100% predatory. I hope we will see similar cases brought against Amazon soon (if they haven't been already).
The fact that so many companies are dependent on selling on Amazon, yet Amazon also sells their own products, is ludicrous.
- AcmeShop sells 3d printers and sell on Amazon
- Amazon sees these printers are selling well
- Amazon buys/creates their own 3d printer brand
- Amazon gives their own products preferencial treatment and uses all it's data for how AcmeShop's printers are selling to undercut them in all markets
- AcmeShop goes out of business because unaware consumers buy what, on the surface, is a better deal
- With no competition Amazon increases it's prices to whatever it likes
Is Amazon able to make a better value 3d printer?
If yes, seems like consumers win?
If no, then people will lose trust on Amazon over time and will use other shopping platforms. So Amazon is basically trading short-term profit for long-term profit.
Consumers win when there is continued competition. Short term, sure, consumers get a better printer, but once Amazon has taken over the market where is the drive to make anything better or cheaper? It's competition 101..
I think a lot of American's have lost trust in AT&T, Time Warner Cable, but it doesn't meant they're not forced to use them.
If you control the pipes you should not be allowed to also sell the water in those pipes. You will always be in a far greater position to take advantage and become a monopoly, which, is well documented, hurts consumers.
Aww... have you ever heard about price dumping to kill the competition? Kindle would be a good example here :D
Every big retailer has its own house brand. There is nothing special about a big retailer using their sales data to make decisions on house branding.
No they cannot adjust their pricing to whatever they like because Amazon is not a monopoly. People can buy stuff elsewhere. If Amazon pricing is bad, people will leave and it will kill Amazon.
But this is how online advertising works.
AcmeShop can equally run ads on other companies 3D printers on Facebook.
And they can equally run ads on Google about Facebook Marketplace.
"Normal" online advertising is neutral with respect to companies bidding on placements. Not so much with Facebook, which is under no obligation to run a bid on every ad they serve. Some of those ads are dedicated Marketplace ads, and AcmeShop can't bid on them, or even limit access to the data that Facebook collected while performing their contractual duties to AcmeShop.
I'm surprised the matter is being so widely reported. I would think the ads platform was ... classified :)
I wonder if the next administration will put a stop to this EU trade war against US Big Tech, or if they will let specific companies (e.g. Meta & Google) continue to suffer due to a (perceived or real) bias against that admin during their 2016-2020 tenure and their political campaigns.
I imagine at the very least that the company formerly known as Twitter will be protected.
This is politics. The US act exactly the same way against EU companies: https://www.pharmavoice.com/news/ftc-request-novo-catalent-d...
That's kind of my point. This isn't "consumer protection", it's a shakedown of a US company by the EU.
I think that the incoming US administration will seek to play politics more aggressively than the current admin.
Probably - or at least that is the rhetorics.
However, it is not clear that this is not in balance already. The discussion thread seems to believe that the EU is being harsher to the US than the other way around.
> I imagine at the very least that the company formerly known as Twitter will be protected.
verified: https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-polit...
Well, Tim Cook was talking to Trump about EU legal issues. Trump made public statements about it.
One reason Meta and Google's stocks have not boomed after the election is they're seen as more liberal in Trump's circle.
Exactly what I was thinking. Apple is seen as neutral by Trump admin. X as an ally. And Meta/Google as enemies
Based on their stock and wealth, I don't think Meta and Google are exactly suffering. They've been getting away with this shit for, well, decades.
What does that have to do with anything? You don't become an economic super power by letting poorer countries tax your richest companies.
but you can become an economic super power by avoiding tax smaller companies pay?
Tax strategy is so integral to large corporations' business strategy that "tax strategy ≈ business strategy" is basically a true statement for them.
I hope big tech just leaves the EU and leaves them scrambling to replace large swaths of infrastructure while everything goes down.
I can tell you that a lot of the EU hope the same - at this point MS teams has become a meme of poor quality - but because of the MS monopoly, it is not possible to compete
And because of the US' blatant lack of antitrust initiatives, probably because of the leverage it affords the US, everybody are forced this garbage upon them.
> I can tell you that a lot of the EU hope the same
This is because 99.99% of people in the EU have zero understanding of how heavily reliant they are on American big tech under the hood. Nearly every piece of technology or every running service in the EU relies on it.
I guarantee you most EU citizens don't want YouTube, Google Maps, Google Search, everything running on AWS/Azure/GCP, everything reliant on Intel/Nvidia IP, etc taken away from them.
> blatant lack of antitrust initiatives
The fact of the matter is that the EU model does not work. If we adopted it, we'd be 20 years behind in tech, as evidenced by the sheer stagnation in the EU.
The EU is great at academic research and has absolutely shot itself in the foot when it comes to industrializing any of it in the tech space. Your best engineers and companies often simply move here after they get sick of being underpaid or hamstrung.
You are completely right - whenever you sidestep free market principles a nation can get ahead. Just like China constantly do it. This works until it doesn't anymore.
Another classic case of European bureaucrats raiding the piggy jar of US tech companies.
Like, obviously, marketplace is tied to Facebook the social network. It's how they authenticate sellers are real people and connect them to nearby people. It does a huge disservice to consumers to try to disconnect the two.
> It does a huge disservice to consumers to try to disconnect the two.
That isn't what is happening here. They are being fined for preferential treatment to their own service on their platform. That isn't the same thing as you're saying.
But why would Facebook not have the right to show Facebook Marketplace on their own platform? Is Facebook not allowed to add features to their app? Is Facebook Group an unfair competitor to other online forums? Who decide what features are allowed?
What do they mean by preferential treatment? The article does not state the detail.
This is what drives me nuts with so many of these EU antitrust articles lately.
They're clear about the fine, but then it's all handwavy language about what a concrete violation even looks like. So it's impossible to even have an opinion because nobody even knows what we're actually talking about.
Best I could gather from the article is that this has something to do with paid ads on Facebook and Instagram that link to Marketplace vs. paid ads that link to other similar services (like eBay I'm guessing?), and that there's something extra-special about the Marketplace ads that the eBay ads don't have. But what even is the special thing? And is the article even accurate on this? Because it also refers to Marketplace listings as "ads" so it's not easy to parse.
Well yeah...the EU isn't just going to say "lol we're stealing money from the US". They are going to give themselves a fig leaf
US Tech companies are completely free not to do business in Europe. That the US ignores some big antitrust issues doesn't mean Europe has to do the same.
Here it deals with the fact that in that area Meta is both a platform provider and a player in said platform, and that they take advantage of the former to hamper competitors. I can't see how it's related to what you're suggesting.
Another classic case of US Tech Companies 'disrupting first, apologising later' by ignoring Consumer protection legislation when it suits their bottom line.
This has nothing to do with consumer protection.
And anyway the EU never had specific legislation at the time Marketplace was introduced hence why they are having to use the EEA agreement as the basis for their actions. Which is basically a generic "do nothing bad" clause.
It has everything to do with Consumer protection. Meta tied its online classified ad business to its social network, automatically exposing Facebook users to Marketplace without any question of consent.
It then exacerbated this by imposing unfair trading conditions with a terms of service that authorised the company to use ad-related data — generated from competitors who advertise on Facebook or Instagram — to benefit Marketplace.
The reason the use EEA legislation is presumably because Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway are EEA but not EU states, but fall under scope here.
How are consumer harmed by Facebook Marketplace appearing in Facebook?
If it was the legislature that explicitly made a law to fine Meta for this instead of a regulatory agency, would you then be ok with it?
EU is becoming a very difficult place to do business.
Marketplace was introduced in 2007, 15 years before the DMA set the guidance for the regulatory landscape.
At the time there was no indiction that simply adding a popular and somewhat obvious feature would be seen as anti-competitive given that other classified ad platforms existed and were seemingly doing well.
You have to wonder how many companies will be reluctant to bring new features to EU in the future.
This isn't even remotely what happened here. Similar to the case where Apple was fined, Meta had years to comply with the new regulations — they simply chose not to and put their fingers in their ears instead. It's naive to think Meta didn't know it was breaking the law, they simply hoped they could get away with a fine that was smaller than the profit made.
> Meta had years to comply with the new regulations
This has nothing to do with the DMA if that's what you mean.
EU is alleging Meta is infringing on the 1994 EEA Agreement specifically the generic "don't impose unfair trading conditions" clause. Which if it successful should frighten most companies. Because making life harder for your competitors is the entire point of business.
If Zuck is to be believed, he's not about making life harder for competitors, he's about competing vigorously.
If you leverage your business, and data obtained for other reasons, to unfairly depress competition, the end user loses out, and is part of why antitrust legislation exists.
Another example is what Amazon were accused of - using their internal data from providing seller services to then decide which products to launch in their Amazon Basics range - to the point where it makes those other products no longer profitable to sell, and an option for consumers is removed.
If they conducted research without using that data about what products people would like, that's different - that's competing vigorously and fairly.
"If you leverage your business, and data obtained for other reasons, to unfairly depress competition, the end user loses out, and is part of why antitrust legislation exists."
This is the most salient point on the thread. People are studiously refusing to frame the discussion around this as pro-consumer, and prefer to maintain that it's nothing more than a proxy success-tax on BigTech.
Making life harder for your competitors is fine. Doing so through illegal practices isn't.
If you want to operate as a marketplace, the EU denotes certain practices and standards for doing so. Don't like them? Don't operate as such.
That is absolutely not the case: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IC.BUS.EASE.XQ
Yes, the legislative landscape changes - just because you had fists from before it became illegal to hit people it doesn't mean that you are entitled to do so.
Also: One should expect Facebook given 3 years to comply would be able to do so.
What is FB going to do? Remove any reference to Marketplace on Facebook.com and move it to fbmarketplace.com?
This is not what the issue is about. The problem is that Meta is giving preference to their own ads over third party ads, not that the platforms reference one another.
The posted article is light on details. Is there another source that backs your statement?
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...
I don't see how that link clarifies things.
This is exactly what we're talking about. EU is basically saying that Facebook.com, just by having a marketplace feature is already breaking the law. Light on details.They employ a bunch of the smartest people in the world - who all probably want to do legal stuff. I am sure they can figure out what to do to follow the law in the jurisdictions they work in.
Agreed. It feels like Europe's DMA is basically just a taxation on big American tech companies.
There is a very fine line between over regulation and enough regulation to maximize efficiency.
So what would your opinion be if the US passed a similar law?
Let's see then and discuss after?
> taxation on big American tech companies
And that's a bad thing how?
Totally agree, it's not a bad thing. It's a large area of the world saying you do not dictate the rules.
It depends. Is the EU presenting itself as a bastion of free trade?
I don't think so anymore. They're clearly protectionists with the recent actions against American big tech and Chinese EV companies.
I’d respectfully put it to you that you don’t seem to actually understand how any of this works. You picked two examples that have nothing to do with the accusation of “protectionism”.
I think EU is just building Meta’s monopolistic moat. It creates a chilling effect on challenger tech companies who may not be able to pay these fines. And yet they still know they might be arbitrarily fined.
Oh the other hand, one might say — “don’t be monopolistic and you won’t have to pay the fines”. But does this stand up under scrutiny? But how does a company compete with a monopoly without having any monopolistic traits? Duopolies by definition are very close to monopolies.
It’s like the EU is saying “no one be like these guys, but please would someone compete with them for the sake of our market!”