(Bloomberg) — Meta Platforms Inc. avoided heavy fines after offering to address French antitrust concerns over its online advertising market.
In July last year, Meta proposed a series of commitments to address concerns that Facebook’s behavior may make it harder to view available ad space online, and on smart phones, as well as data linked to campaigns on the social network.
The French regulator, which was seeking comments from rivals, accepted the concessions from Meta and closed the ongoing case, according to a Autorite de la concurrence statement published Thursday.
According to the statement, Meta commits to allow any adtech firm targeting customers in France to access its business marketing partner program.
It will also develop a new application to allow “objective and transparent” access to data in order to offer targeted ads on its social networks.
The case stems from a complaint lodged in 2019 by Criteo SA, a French adtech firm which has been struggling to cope with changing policies at Meta and Apple.
In a statement, Criteo saluted the decision and said it looked forward to being “reinstated as an authorized partner in France, restoring the company’s ad buying capabilities on Facebook and now Instagram”.
Meta is “glad to have agreed a comprehensive settlement” in cooperation with the regulator, a Meta spokesperson said.
Silicon Valley firms have been facing close scrutiny from French antitrust watchdogs in recent years.
Apple Inc. was fined a record 1.1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) in 2020 over anti-competitive agreements with two distributors. In April Alphabet Inc.’s Google lost its court fight to topple a 150 million-euro ($163 million) French fine for mistreating companies using its online advertising platform.
(Adding comments in paragraph 6.)
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