UK Competition Watchdog Accepts Fresh Proposals from Facebook’s Parent, Meta, on Ad Data Rules

The British Competition Commission has announced that it has approved the adjustments that Facebook parent company Meta has suggested to the way it handles advertisement data on its social media networks. 

The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) stated that Meta had promised to restrict the use of its advertising customers’ data under the terms of the original commitments made in May. 

“The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has accepted proposals to vary Meta’s commitments in the way it uses advertising customers’ data,” the watchdog wrote.

This included giving Facebook Marketplace competitors who ran advertisements on Meta platforms the option to refuse to have their data used for service improvement. 

The goal was to keep Facebook Marketplace from getting an unfair competitive advantage.

Newsng gathered that the main modification is the addition of a setting to exclude specific ad data from all advertisers from being utilised by Meta in the Facebook Marketplace.

The CMA said in an announcement released today, August 20, that it had spoken with Facebook Marketplace users and advertisers regarding the proposals and came to the conclusion that the changes go “above and beyond” the initial pledges and won’t make any advertisers “worse off.”

“The CMA has concluded that the revisions go above and beyond the original commitments and would not leave any advertisers worse off. As a result, the CMA has accepted the proposed variation,” it added.

The CMA launched the inquiry in 2021 to determine if the platform’s data collection and usage practices gave it an unfair edge in markets including online dating and classified ads.

We earlier reported Facebook and WhatsApp, Meta, has been fined $220 million by the Nigerian government for allegedly breaking local consumer, data protection, and privacy laws.

The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) released the update in a statement.