Britain’s competition watchdog said on Friday that social media giant Meta had offered to limit the use of other companies’ advertising data for its Facebook Marketplace service to address the regulator’s competition concerns.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it was willing to agree to the commitments, which include that advertisers can opt out of allowing their data to be used to improve Facebook Marketplace’s classifieds platform.
CMA Chief Compliance Officer Michael Grenfell said: “Reducing the risk of Meta unfairly exploiting the data of companies that advertise on its platform for their own competitive advantage could help many UK companies that advertise there. .
“We are now consulting on these commitments which we believe, at this stage, will address our concerns.”
The CMA cited an example where Meta was able to use data derived from a user’s engagement with Facebook ads to infer that they were interested in sneakers, which could then influence shoe listings for that user on Facebook Marketplace.
A consultation on Meta’s proposals will close on June 26, he said.
Earlier this week, Meta sold animated imagery platform Giphy to Shutterstock for $53 million (roughly Rs. 438 crore) in cash, months after Facebook’s owner agreed to sell the company over competition concerns.
Last year, Britain’s competition watchdog ordered Meta to sell Giphy over fears it could deny or limit competitors such as Snapchat and Twitter from accessing Target’s content.
Meta had reportedly paid $400 million (roughly Rs. 3.3 billion crores) for New York-based Giphy in 2020. A year later, Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority challenged the deal and its successful campaign was the first time a regulator had forced an American technology. giant to sell an already acquired company.
In January, Facebook had asked a London court to block a class action lawsuit worth up to £3 billion (approximately Rs 30.3 billion) over allegations that the social media giant abused its dominant position to monetize data. users personal.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a press release)