The Autorité de la concurrence recognizes that the commitments made by Meta to guarantee fair competition on the French online advertising market are satisfactory.
These commitments follow Criteo’s September 2019 complaint, which related to the termination of its advertising buying partnership with Meta.
Criteo accused Meta at the time of favoring its own services on its platform to the detriment of those of its competitors.
Meta Business Partner
Meta is committed for five years to restore the status of partner “Meta Business Partner” for companies active in the field of advertising services. The “Status” level of this program entitles you to documentary resources and online training, while the “Badge” level provides access to technical assistance on the operation of the Meta APIs, specifies the Autorité de la concurrence. in his press release.
Meta also promises to make a new bidding API, called “Recommendation Feature”, available to ad service providers for three years.
According to the Autorité de la concurrence, these commitments “are likely to remedy the consequences that the practices identified in the preliminary assessment may have had on the market for advertising services intended for advertisers”. It adds that they aim to “guarantee advertising service providers the possibility of developing their activity and the advertising campaigns of their clients according to the model of their choice, under conditions which are not likely to have a negative impact on competition between Meta and these service providers.
Five years of process
The case dates back to 2018, when Meta (ex-Facebook) withdrew access to auction APIs from service providers, including Criteo, when it was used in particular to improve campaign performance monitoring.
Criteo had also had its “Facebook Marketing Partners” status withdrawn (which later became “Meta Business Partner”), which allows advertising players to improve the quality of their services, in particular through access to technical support and training on Meta technologies and solutions.
Seized by Criteo, the Competition Authority then considered that these decisions taken by Meta were likely to “distort competition between online advertising service providers seeking to place ads on Meta’s inventory”.
Criteo satisfied with Meta commitments
The Autorité de la concurrence had also anticipated possible “crowding out effects” by “weakening the competitive pressure exerted by intermediaries such as Criteo, whose retargeting service competes with that developed by Meta”, recalls the regulator in his statement.
In a press release, Criteo is satisfied with Meta’s commitments. “Meta has finally offered strong commitments to address our complaint and we look forward to partnering with Meta again to purchase advertising inventory on their platforms on behalf of our clients using our industry leading data and technologies. optimization of advertising purchases,” commented Ryan Damon, chief legal officer of Criteo.