Competition authorities have been exploring ways to cooperate internationally, with the UK leading the way in championing this approach
Facebook is accused of using advertisers’ data to outcompete them: The European Commission and the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) simultaneously launched probes into Facebook on Friday. Both authorities aim to determine whether Facebook has used the data it gathers from advertisers to gain an unfair advantage in markets where Facebook competes with them, such as classified ads (i.e. marketplaces) where people buy and sell goods from each other. Since Facebook has its own marketplace service, the two authorities are concerned that it might obtain data from other marketplaces which advertise on Facebook, and use it to outcompete them. The CMA also mentions Facebook’s single sign-on option as a possible source of competitive advantage, and extends its investigation to Facebook Dating, which launched in Europe in 2020.
Authorities across countries are keen to cooperate: The two investigations were announced almost at the same time on Friday, and are remarkably similar to one another. The two authorities note that the respective investigations are independent, though both say they will seek to work closely with one another. Antitrust authorities are looking to intensify international cooperation in their efforts to curb the power of Big Tech, due to the global nature of digital markets. The CMA has been particularly active in this respect, as evident in its recent joint statement with the Australian and German authorities in calling for stricter rules on merger enforcement. However, there is still work to do to bring different jurisdictions on the same page, particularly with regard to the approach to merger control.
The shift towards ex-ante rules is happening: Competition investigations concerning Big Tech are on the rise around the world. In our Platforms and Big Tech Tracker, we’ve tracked 32 investigations since 2010, of which 13 were opened in the last year. Such an increase is perhaps a driving force behind the trend towards ex-ante regulation frameworks. We’ve tracked eight initiatives around the world to address competition issues ex-ante. Three of these (EU, Germany, UK) aim to establish a process to identify companies with significant market power, and make them subject to specific remedies. In particular, Germany has already adopted its Digital Competition Act, and is currently running probes into Amazon, Facebook, and Google to determine whether they are of “paramount significance” for competition across markets.
Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-investigates-facebook-s-use-of-ad-data
