The UK regulator will assess whether Meta’s new commercial terms are an abuse of its dominant market position.
The UK’s competitions watchdog has open an investigation into whether Meta’s new commercial terms for businesses could harm news publishers.
Meta initially revised its plans to roll out its updated commercial terms to 20 November, but has now put it on hold, following complaints from advertisers and publishers.
Under the new terms, any user with a business account will automatically have to consent to Meta scraping their websites if they continue to use Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp.
This could mean any content that is collected from these websites may then be used to develop and train its AI products.
Currently, there is no option for users to opt-out.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is concerned that requiring publishers and content businesses to accept these terms and conditions, Meta could be in breach of trading rules.
The regulator is usings the powers from the Competitions Act 1998 to urgently investigate the concerns raised.
The probe will assess whether Meta holds a dominant position and if it is abusing that by imposing exploitative terms on publishers and advertisers.
Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the CMA, said: “Digital platforms play an important role in helping UK businesses reach millions of customers around the world. But where a company holds a dominant position, it must not use that position to impose unfair terms.
“We’ve heard concerns from news publishers and other businesses and are acting swiftly to investigate whether Meta’s proposed changes may breach competition law, using the most appropriate powers available to us to examine these issues in detail. We will be working to reach a swift and satisfactory resolution to this case.”
This is just the start of CMA’s investigation so no decision on whether Meta has broken the law has been made. The watchdog will now gather and assess evidence from Meta and third parties.
In a separate investigation, the CMA is also seeking information from Meta on its new Meta One business subscription service over concerns raised by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) about the impact the service could have on small businesses who can’t afford to subscribe.
