Germany’s competition authority decided to place Facebook’s parent company Meta under increased scrutiny this Wednesday, on the basis of a 2021 law extending its powers to deal with some of the largest tech companies operating in the country.
Meta is now subject to a special competition abuse control regime in the European country, as the designation, which stands for five years, empowers the regulator, the Federal Cartel Office (FCO), to take faster action to respond to competition concerns linked to Meta’s operations by imposing operational conditions intended to correct antitrust abuses.
The German FCO said it had determined Meta to be a company of “paramount importance” in the markets, paving the way for authorities to punish “possible competition violations” while two investigations targeting the group have already been opened.
Meta, the digital giant operating Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp platforms, said in a statement it will not appeal the decision.
For Andreas Mundt, chairman of the agency, “the digital ecosystem created by Meta with a very large number of users” makes the company a “central player in the social media space.”
The anti-cartel office is enforcing a law that went into effect last year, which strengthens its powers against market-dominant, mostly digital, companies. The law gives it the power to regulate the activities of targeted groups.
The competition watchdog had already blocked the merger of user data from different services of Meta in early 2019, a decision challenged by the group and which has not yet been decided by the courts.
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