United Kingdom: Issued CMA decision to accept Meta’s proposed variation of commitments regarding its use of data obtained through digital display advertising

On 20 August 2024, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced its decision to accept Meta’s variation of commitments previously accepted by the CMA under the Competition Act 1998. The variation addresses the CMA’s concerns regarding Meta’s use of data in the context of digital display advertising services, particularly for Facebook Marketplace. In particular, the varied commitments allow Meta to implement the technical controls as they apply to Facebook Marketplace to cover data from all advertising customers, rather than only data from Facebook Marketplace’s competitors, allowing advertisers to retain the ability to place advertisements on Facebook Marketplace and be certain that their advertising data will not be used to improve Facebook Marketplace, without having to opt in or out.