Next year, Meta faces a €550 million lawsuit in a Spanish court. The Association of Information Media (AMI), representing 90 media outlets in Spain, accuses the parent company of Facebook of breaching E.U. data protection laws.
Between May 2018 and July 2023, Meta is said to have built its advertising revenue by unlawfully collecting European users’ personal data without their explicit consent. This goes against the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which mandates obtaining user consent before handling personal data for advertising. AMI claims Meta ignored this requirement entirely.
AMI argues that all of Meta’s revenue from targeted ads has come from “systemic and massive non-compliance.” This practice has reportedly given Meta an unfair edge in selling digital advertising space, putting smaller media companies at risk. The lawsuit seeks compensation for the profits lost by these outlets.
AMI believes Meta’s market power has stifled fair monetization opportunities for news content from media companies. The lawsuit was filed late last year, with a preliminary hearing set for November 27, 2024, and trial sessions scheduled for October 1-2, 2025.
The E.U. has been engaged in a long-standing clash over Meta’s data handling policies. Mark Zuckerberg’s company has faced numerous fines from E.U. authorities in recent years. Unions for Spanish television and radio have also filed a €160 million lawsuit for similar issues.
In January 2023, the Data Protection Commission in Ireland hit Meta with over $400 million in fines for compelling E.U.-based users to accept personalized ads on Facebook and Instagram. Although Meta agreed to amend some data processing practices in March, the European Data Protection Board deemed these changes insufficient. In November, it banned Meta’s data practices related to targeted ads in the European Economic Area.
To address regulatory pressures, Meta introduced a subscription model, allowing European users to entirely opt-out of targeted ads on Facebook and Instagram for a fee starting at €13 a month. This was an attempt to recover potential losses from users who might not agree to targeted advertising. However, the European Commission ruled this created a “pay or consent” model that violates the Digital Markets Act. The Commission argued that Meta was effectively forcing users to accept data usage for advertising without offering a genuinely free, less personalized alternative.
In response to these concerns, last month, Meta began allowing E.U. users to opt for less personalized advertising. The company claimed that the E.U.’s demands exceeded legal requirements, but decided to comply nonetheless. Additionally, the European Commission fined Meta nearly €800 million for stifling competition by linking Facebook Marketplace to its platform and misusing non-public advertising data from competitors.
Meta’s concession reflects growing pressure from the E.U., which is committed to safeguarding citizens’ digital rights and holds major tech firms to account for how they collect and handle data. With a significant portion of its revenue linked to targeted ads, Meta has a vested interest in adapting to the E.U.’s requirements. In the third quarter of this year, European users generated 23.5% of its advertising revenue.
Despite these adaptations, Meta has not backed down from all regulatory challenges aimed at its market influence. In 2021, it blocked Australian news content on Facebook after the government mandated that digital platforms compensate news publishers for their material. Such actions may return if similar laws are enacted elsewhere, as Meta also restricted content from Canadian news sources last year due to comparable legislation.
Nonetheless, not all attempts to address its alleged anti-competitive practices have been met with resistance. In August, the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority accepted Meta’s revised plan for managing advertising customers’ data after a probe into potential unfair advantages for its services.
