Meta offers to limit the use of advertising data to resolve competition issues in the UK
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s competition watchdog said on Friday that social media giant Meta had offered to limit the use of other companies’ advertising data on its Facebook Marketplace service to address the regulator’s competition concerns.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced that it intends to accept commitments that include the option for advertisers to opt out of having their data used to improve the Facebook Marketplace advertising platform.
Michael Grenfell, the CMA’s director of enforcement, said: “Meta’s unfair use of the data of businesses that advertise on its platform for its own competitive advantage could help many UK businesses that advertise on it.
“We are now consulting on these commitments, which we believe at this stage will resolve our concerns,” he added.
The CMA cited the example of Meta’s ability to use information about a user’s interaction with ads on Facebook to infer that they are interested in trainers, which could then influence that user’s shoe listings on Facebook Marketplace.
It added that negotiations on the Meta proposals will end on June 26.
