Meta has been sentenced to pay $479 million to the digital press for unfair competition

Justicehas sentenced  to pay €479 million to Meta, 87 digital press editors and news agencies grouped in the Information Media Association (AMI). The Madrid Commercial Court No. 15 has found it proven that technology gained a significant competitive advantage in the advertising market by conducting campaigns based on the improper use of personal data by Facebook and Instagram users.

The judgment partially considers the claim filed by the Spanish digital press. The judgment concludes that the Met developed behavioral advertising using personal data without adequate legal basis, in contravention of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a practice that put digital media at a disadvantageas they could not compete with the platform's ability to segmentate advertising.

The conflict began in 2018 with the entry into force of the GDPR. The Met then decided to change the legal basis for the processing of data from the user's explicit consent to the alleged "obligation to execute the contract", an interpretation that already served a 2022 sanction by the Irish authority, which, according to the court, allowed the company to continue exploiting millions of personal data without valid authorization for behavioral advertising.

The resolution also states that Meta Ireland, the EU's operational headquarters, did not submit its accounts in Spain. In the absence of information, the judge has applied the rules of the burden of proof and has validated the estimates of the plaintiffs. It is estimated that the Met entered more than 5,281 million euros in Spain between May 2018 and August 2023, thanks to this practice.

In determining compensation, the judgement uses the criteria of the National Commission on Markets and Competition's analysis of the online advertising sector and distributes the amount according to the market share of the digital press during the five years in which the infringement occurred, concluding that the lossof revenue to publishers is "reasonable" and a prerequisite for the economic claim to proceed.

The judicial decision can have a significant impact beyond the Spanish sector. Facebook and Instagram operate in a homogeneous manner throughout the EU and are subject to the same legal framework. In fact, a similar request has already been processed in France. The judgment stresses that the control of abuse resulting from the illegal processing of personal data must play a key role in this area under competition law, in line with what the European Parliament established in 2018.