An unprecedented legal attack in France against Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram: according to Letter A on April 4, around a hundred French media outlets (radio, TV, print and web press) are about to file a complaint against Mark Zuckerberg's group before the Paris Economic Activities Court. The group, which includes Radio France, France Télévisions, Prisma Media, TF1, and Les Echos-Le Parisien is seeking nearly one billion euros in damages, an amount that could increase if other media join the group action. M6 and Le Monde are indeed missing, specifies the Journal du Net, this Monday, April 7.
What is Mark Zuckerberg's group accused of? The American company is accused of unfair competition in the targeted advertising market. Meta allegedly did not play by the GDPR, the European regulation that protects our personal data, unlike French media.
An unfair competitive advantage?
According to this law, any company that wishes to offer you targeted advertising is supposed to obtain your consent. A point well respected by French media, which have implemented consent management platforms (CMPs). The problem: Meta allegedly circumvented this rule by relying on other possibilities of the GDPR, namely, "legitimate interest" and "contractual clauses" – provisions less restrictive than the collection of consent per se.
These choices constitute, according to French media, an unfair competitive advantage. They have allegedly allowed the American giant, since 2019, to increase its revenue from targeted advertising, while those of press publishers have continued to decline. However, while legitimate interest and contractual clauses are indeed provided for by the GDPR (to justify data collection), they are not valid in the case of targeted advertising.
A point recalled by the European Data Protection Board (the body that brings together the European CNILs) in December 2022, and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in July 2023.
Meta, regularly the target of attacks and convictions for violation of the GDPR
The judges ruled that Meta could not collect enormous amounts of data simply because a user signed up for Instagram, Meta, or WhatsApp. The CJEU recalled that the group, co-founded by Mark Zuckerberg, is obliged to obtain the consent of Internet users to collect their data for targeted advertising purposes. This action, about to be launched by a Parisian law firm, is inspired by a similar procedure initiated in Spain, which should be judged at the end of the year.
Mark Zuckerberg's company is regularly the target of attacks and decisions of violation of the GDPR for lack of transparency, failure to protect the data of users including minors, or even processing of personal data for targeted advertising purposes without transparency... Between September 2021 and today, the group has been the subject of several decisions by the Irish Data Protection Commission, the equivalent of the CNIL in the country (DPC). In total, the Menlo Park company has been fined around €2.6 billion for violations of the GDPR.
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