European Commission Starts Formal Investigation Against Facebook

The European Commission is opening a formal investigation against Facebook, according to the British business newspaper Financial Times.

 

The social media company has abused its position of power to promote its own Marketplace service. This would harm competitors in the advertising market. An official announcement can be made within days, according to the newspaper.

Earlier, the committee sent questions to Facebook and peers in the industry to form a picture of the situation. The marketplace is a service where users can place personal advertisements, for example, when they are looking for things or want to sell them.

Facebook’s approximately 2 billion users may be more likely to choose that service than competitors like eBay, Marktplaats or Craigslist because of the company’s promotions.

Facebook is so far the only one of the major US tech companies that Brussels does not yet conduct an official competition investigation into. This has already happened against Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Apple. The European Commission did not want to confirm the Financial Times report.