By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Meta Platforms will allow rival classified ads service providers to list their ads on Facebook Marketplace, the company said on Thursday, three months after it was hit with a 797-million-euro ($828 million) EU antitrust fine for giving its own service an unfair advantage.
The European Commission in its decision in November last year said the U.S. tech giant had imposed unfair trading conditions on its rivals and had also tied Facebook Marketplace to its social network Facebook in breach of EU antitrust rules.
Calling it the Facebook Marketplace Partner Progam, Meta said the scheme is a response to the EU competition watchdog even as it challenged the fine in court.
“This new program will mean that third-party partners (specifically, online classified ad service providers as defined in the European Commission’s decision) will be able to list their consumer-to-consumer inventory on Facebook Marketplace,” Meta said in a blogpost.
“That inventory will appear side by side with other third-party inventory and Facebook user listings.”
The company tested the scheme in Germany, France and the United States with eBay last month.
($1 = 0.9630 euros)
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Susan Fenton)
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