A consortium of 83 Spanish media outlets, led by the AMI media group, has filed an unprecedented €550 million ($600 million) lawsuit against Facebook’s owner, Meta Platforms. The case claims unfair competition in the advertising industry as well as probable breaches of EU data protection standards, with ramifications that might be felt across the European Union.
The AMI media group said on Monday that the newspapers filed a collective complaint with a commercial court on Friday. The action alleges that Meta violated EU data protection standards between 2018 and 2023 by its “massive” and “systematic” exploitation of personal data from users on its Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp platforms. The media outlets allege that Meta has an unfair advantage in producing and delivering tailored ads as a result of this widespread usage, resulting in unfair competition.
Meta Platforms has yet to reply to the charges, and its press office has been silent on the subject. According to a person familiar with the situation at Meta, the business has yet to get the legal documentation.
Prisa (PRS.MC), the publisher of Spain’s main daily, El Pais, and Vocento (VOC.MC), the owner of ABC, are among the complainants. The group claims Meta is routinely deploying ads based on personal data obtained from customers without their express authorization, purportedly in violation of the EU General Data Protection Regulation, which was established in May 2018. This rule requires websites to get permission to gather and use personal data.
Given the alleged infringement of European standards, Nicolas Gonzalez Cuellar, a lawyer representing the newspapers, emphasized the case’s potential cross-border implications, saying, “Of course, the same legal proceeding could be initiated in any other EU country.”
This is the latest instance of conventional media groups throughout the world going to court to protect their interests. Media outlets throughout the globe have struggled to persuade technological businesses to pay fair prices for utilizing and sharing their material.
In 2014, the authorities shut down Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O) Google News service, a prior success for Spanish media. The service was later restored in 2022 as a result of new regulations that allowed media outlets to negotiate prices directly with the internet behemoth. In response to the Spanish case, nations such as Canada have enacted legislation to guarantee that internet firms pay for news. The case against Meta Platforms adds to the continuing worldwide debate over the digital age’s interaction between conventional media and internet behemoths.