Meta Ordered to Pay €479 Million to Spanish Publishers Over GDPR Violation
A Madrid court has ruled that Meta must pay €479 million to 87 Spanish digital press publishers and news agencies, members of the News Media Association (AMI), for gaining an unfair competitive advantage through advertising practices on Facebook and Instagram that violated the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The ruling, delivered on Wednesday, also includes over €60 million in legal interest, plus compensation for the Europa Press agency, which is not affiliated with AMI.
The case stemmed from a December 2023 complaint filed by AMI against Meta ireland, Meta’s European headquarters, alleging unfair competition in digital advertising sales. The publishers claimed Meta utilized user data without explicit consent to build targeted advertising profiles.
Crucially, Meta Ireland failed to provide the court with financial records detailing its operations within Spain. As a result, the judge based their assessment on data submitted by the spanish digital press. This data indicated that between May 25,2018 – the date GDPR came into effect – and august 1,2023 – when Meta re-introduced consent requests for data usage – the company generated over €5.281 billion in revenue from online advertising in Spain.
The court resolute that a portion of these earnings were obtained through GDPR violations and should be redistributed to competitors within the Spanish advertising market, specifically including the digital press. the judge calculated the damages to the Spanish digital press as a plausible estimate of lost income and revenue due to meta’s actions. Furthermore, the court reasoned that meta’s actual earnings were likely higher, as the company would have presented its financial records if they were lower.
