The plaintiffs, brought together by an expert in competition law, are about to attack Meta, the parent company of Facebook
, for abuse of a dominant position.
Facebook is in further trouble, this time for an alleged violation of UK competition law. Under the leadership of Lisa Lovdahl Gormsen, doctor in international competition law, a collective complaint was officially filed on January 13 before the Competition Appeal Tribunal in London (a court specializing in cases relating to economic regulation and competition) . This aims to condemn the Meta group for abuse of a dominant position. The plaintiffs are seeking a judgment of up to 2.3 billion pounds sterling (about 2.8 billion euros).
By exploiting the personal data of its users, Facebook engages in an abuse of a dominant position, in the eyes of Lisa Lovdahl Gormsen
The complaint is filed on behalf of British Facebook users against its parent company, Meta, which they accuse of engaging in an abuse of a dominant position by having illegally exploited the personal data of the network’s 44 million members. in recent years, between 2015 and 2019 to be precise.
Legal expert Lisa Lovdahl Gormsen, behind the complaint, explains through the filing that Mark Zuckerberg’s firm abused its dominant position by imposing unfair terms and conditions on users to exploit their data. personal.
The case accuses giant Meta of breaching the Competition Act 1998, saying the price paid by UK users was unfair. This price is the private data submitted by citizens, which then allows Facebook to generate most of its revenue, by engaging in targeted advertising.
For the complainants, Facebook is not a free social network
Price, advertising, income… And in all of this, what did users receive in exchange? This is precisely the issue of the complaint, which denounces a lack of fairness for users who are in a way forced to give full access to their personal data, in order to be able to have free access to the social network, access which becomes free. only symbolically therefore, the personal information left on the platform feeding the group’s economic model. And this is what, in the eyes of the lawyer, constitutes an abuse of a dominant position, in that users have no choice but to comply with Facebook’s policy.
In a statement relayed to AFP, a spokesperson for Meta recalls that “ people access our service for free. They choose it because it provides them with a valuable service and they have significant control over what information they share with Meta’s platforms and with whom. “. Without forgetting, to the discharge of Facebook, that the user accepts the collection of his data at the time of registration.
A complaint on behalf of all Britons, and an upcoming trial in the United States
Complaint, in a case involving both privacy and competition, seeks 2.8 billion euros to be able to properly compensate the 44 million British users of Facebook, who are entitled, according to the complaint , to receive a monetary reward for helping to generate billions of dollars in revenue for the Californian group. The 44 million users are, via this procedure, directly represented through the complaint.
At the same time, Meta is the subject of an accusation of dominance, this time in the United States (for the acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram in particular, which would have been carried out to break potential future competitors of Facebook). Deemed admissible by the federal judge, the complaint from the equivalent of the American Competition Authority should well lead to a trial.
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Complaint filed against Facebook for facilitating Rohingya genocide
Source: Reuters
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