Meta Jostles With EU and US Regulators in Same Week

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, adopting the moniker “Z-Pain,” serenaded his wife earlier this week by releasing a cover of the bawdy, foul-mouthed Atlanta rap classic “Get Low,” originally performed by Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz.

Cringe does not fall under the purview of regulators. Instead, European authorities fined Meta this week for allegedly breaching antitrust rules by favoring its classified service Facebook Marketplace, while the US FTC won the right to take the company to trial over its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. Both clashes reveal more than meets the eye.

Drama and Decorum

The EU and the US are playing regulatory musical chairs. In Brussels, former EU Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton resigned in September in a shock move after a dramatic standoff with Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission’s president he accused of trying to block his appointment for personal reasons.

Across the Atlantic, President-elect Donald Trump is poised to fill out agencies with appointees to suit his administration’s plans. In both cases, there appears to be some alignment on tech overreach:

• The Breton-less EU fined Zuckerberg’s social media giant €797.7 million euros ($843.3 million) Wednesday, charging other online marketplaces are harmed by the fact that Facebook Marketplace is automatically attached to Meta’s flagship social network, putting it in front of users “whether they want it or not.” Meta said it will appeal.
• The EU decision came a day after a judge allowed the Federal Trade Commission to proceed with a lawsuit to break up Meta. One could be forgiven for assuming the case started with the Biden administration’s aggressive FTC Chair Lina Khan, but it actually originated in Trump’s first term.

While she is almost certain not to continue in her role, Khan has a fan in Vice President-elect JD Vance, who praised her for taking on tech behemoths. Bloom Strategic Counsel lobbyist Seth Bloom told TheWrap that Trump “is a populist, and particularly when it comes to Big Tech, he’s willing to engage in antitrust enforcement.”

Following Through: The FTC and four states sued to block UnitedHealth Group’s $3.3 billion deal to acquire home care company Amedisys. Former antitrust official David Balto told The New York Times the Trump administration will likely continue the “mainstream antitrust case.”