CMA Wraps Up Antitrust Investigations on Amazon, Meta

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced that the organization is closing the antitrust investigations on Amazon and Meta's retail platforms.

CMA Secures Improvements from Amazon, Meta

The regulators decided to suspend the antitrust investigations after Amazon and Meta pledged to "protect fair competition" on the platforms' respective marketplaces. "The CMA has secured commitments from 2 of the largest digital players, Amazon and Meta, in 2 separate cases, benefitting sellers and customers by ensuring fair competition on their retail platforms," the competition watchdog wrote.

For Amazon, the company will give a fair chance for independent sellers on the Marketplace by having their offers featured in the Buy Box. In addition, the e-commerce giant is not allowed to use the Marketplace data it gathered from third-party sellers to gain an unfair competitive advantage.

Meanwhile, Meta committed that it will not exploit its advertising customers' data. Competitors of Facebook Marketplace will have the option to prevent their data from being used to improve the marketplace, giving competitors more autonomy over their ad data.

CMA Welcomes Commitment from Companies

The CMA started its probe on Meta in 2021 and Amazon in 2022. Both companies were subjected to the investigation after there were concerns about how Amazon was allegedly abusing its market dominance in the U.K. The company is also currently being sued by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and 17 other states for similar concerns.

Meanwhile, Meta recently launched its ad-free subscription in Europe as a way to abide by the EU regulation. This will ensure that European users will have their data protected and will not be used to generate targeted advertisements on Facebook and Instagram.

"We welcome the constructive resolution of our concerns in a way that benefits people and businesses and expect to see more of this kind of resolution once the Digital Markets, Competition, and Consumers Bill comes into force," CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell stated.