EU Commission’s Meta Fine Continues Attacks on US Tech, Says ITIF

WASHINGTON—Following the decision by the European Commission to fine Meta €797 million for allegedly anticompetitive behavior involving the leveraging of its social network to benefit Facebook Marketplace, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the leading think tank for science and technology policy, released the following statement from Joseph V. Coniglio, director of antitrust and innovation, leading ITIF’s Schumpeter Project on Competition Policy:

With another huge antitrust fine against a leading American technology company, the European Commission has again weaponized a competition regime that has substantially contributed to Europe’s innovation malaise against successful U.S. digital firms—a policy that will not be well received by the incoming Trump administration.

The notion that Meta is illegally tying the use of Marketplace to Facebook is belied by the fact that Facebook users are not at all required to participate on Marketplace, an ecosystem that has resulted in tremendous benefits for European businesses and consumers.

Moreover, alleging that Meta is leveraging purported dominance in social networking to gain a substantial competitive advantage in Marketplace is fanciful at best. Large American marketplaces, such as Amazon and eBay, as well as many dynamic firms across Europe compete broadly in the online display advertising space, providing more than effective competitive constraints to Marketplace.

The Commission’s ancillary data misappropriation claim is perhaps even more troubling, as it reflects another instance of the Commission resorting to its otherwise rarely invoked authority to police “exploitative” abuses in cases involving “Big Tech.” And yet, not only does Meta not leverage advertiser data in this way, but such a speculative and exploitative theory of harm goes well beyond what would be actionable under U.S. law.

Notwithstanding the landmark Draghi Report, which essentially declared European competition policy a 40-year failed experiment with respect to driving innovation in the EU, this decision against Meta makes clear that the Commission will continue to double down on challenging conduct that harms competitors and not consumers.

While European policymakers may believe that taking this approach for regimes like Article 102 and the Digital Markets Act can help level the playing field for European firms, in reality, doing so is not only harming consumers and innovation in Europe, but placing totally unnecessary strains on a transatlantic relationship that is critical to countering China’s quest for global techno-economic dominance.

Contact: Sydney Mack, [email protected]