European Commission escalates antitrust probe into Meta

The European Commission has escalated its probe into Facebook parent company Meta Platforms' classified ads service, citing antitrust concerns about the tying of the company's marketplace platform with its social media network.

"Our preliminary concern is that Meta ties its dominant social network Facebook to its online classified ad services called Facebook Marketplace," said European Union competition chief Margrethe Vestager.

"This means Facebook users have no choice but to have access to Facebook Marketplace."

Vestager also stated that the EU's antitrust enforcers were also concerned about Meta imposing "unfair tradition conditions" that will allow it to use data from online classified ads services, which businesses themselves cannot access.

Meta can be fined up to 10% of its global turnover, while EU regulators also have the power to force firms into making changes to solve competition problems - which could potentially push the group into either separating Marketplace from its social media platform or providing rivals with access data used for its online classifieds.

Tim Lamb, Meta's head of EMEA competition, said: "The claims made by the European Commission are without foundation. We will continue to work with regulatory authorities to demonstrate that our product innovation is pro-consumer and pro-competitive."

As of 1300 GMT, Meta shares were down 1.41% in pre-market trading at $117.75 each.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com