UK Regulator Receives Promises of Fair Competition from Amazon and Meta
On Friday, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) of Britain announced that both Amazon and Meta, the owner of Facebook, have willingly agreed to make modifications to their retail platforms in order to safeguard fair competition.
The US online giants accepted the “commitments” after separate investigations by the UK regulator into “competition concerns” related to their use of advertising data, the CMA said.
It launched an investigation into Amazon in July 2022 over fears the company was abusing its dominant position as the UK’s leading online shopping platform by giving its own seller business an “unfair advantage” over independent competitors.
Amazon was also accused of favoring sellers who use its own warehouse and delivery services over rival logistics companies, the CMA noted.
An Amazon spokesperson said in a statement that it had “engaged constructively with the CMA” during its investigation.
“We welcome this resolution, which maintains our ability to serve both our customers and the more than 100,000 small and medium-sized businesses that sell through our UK store,” it added.
The CMA’s announcement follows a similar outcome in the European Union, which announced in December that Amazon had agreed to end what it deemed anti-competitive practices related to the data of independent sellers.
The UK regulator’s investigation into Meta, which began in June 2021, also followed concerns that it was at risk of “gaining an unfair competitive advantage that could distort competition” on its Facebook Marketplace platform.
“Meta has also signed commitments that prevent the company from exploiting the data of its advertising clients, meaning that businesses and ultimately consumers are protected,” the CMA said.
“Going forward, Facebook Marketplace competitors who advertise on the Meta Platforms will be able to ‘opt out’ of having their data used to improve Facebook Marketplace.”
The US behemoth has also promised to limit how it uses advertising data to develop its products, according to the regulator.
This ensures that it “cannot use information from advertising customers to give itself an unfair advantage in competing with products or services sold by those advertising customers.”
Meta said it welcomed the CMA’s decision to end its investigation after the company committed to “put in place systems and controls designed to confirm and confirm that competitor advertiser data is not being used in the Marketplace”.
The matter is still the subject of a similar investigation by the European Commission.
