Spanish Court Delivers Landmark Ruling Against Meta
In a significant victory for traditional media companies, a Madrid-based court has ordered social media giant Meta to pay substantial damages totaling €481 million ($554 million) to Spanish news outlets. The ruling delivered on Thursday represents one of the largest penalties imposed on the company for data protection violations in Europe.
Unfair Market Advantage Through Data Exploitation
The mercantile court No. 15 of Madrid found that Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, had systematically extracted personal data from internet users without proper authorization. According to the court statement, this illegal data collection gave Meta an unfair competitive advantage in the digital advertising market that Spanish media companies could not match.
The court determined that Meta's actions directly violated European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules, which have been in effect since 2018. These regulations mandate that companies must implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect user privacy when collecting personal information.
The illicit data practices continued for five years before Meta finally updated its consent procedures in 2023 to align with European legal standards. During this period, the company used the improperly obtained data to create more targeted and effective advertising campaigns, significantly harming the advertising revenues of Spanish digital media outlets.
Wider Implications and Meta's Response
The court noted that this ruling could set a precedent for similar cases across Europe, including an ongoing legal battle in France where Meta faces comparable allegations. This isn't the first time Meta has encountered regulatory trouble in the EU - in 2022, Irish regulators imposed a €265 million fine on the company for similar data protection breaches.
Meta has strongly rejected the court's decision, announcing plans to appeal what it calls a "baseless claim." The company stated in an official response: "This is a baseless claim that lacks any evidence of alleged harm and willfully ignores how the online advertising industry works. Meta complies with all applicable laws, and has provided clear choices, transparent information and given users a range of tools to control their experience on our services."
The case was brought forward by 81 Spanish media organizations who argued that Meta's data practices created an uneven playing field in the digital advertising market. The court agreed that Spanish online media suffered significant financial damage due to Meta's dominance fueled by improper data handling.
This ruling comes at a time when Meta has been actively lobbying for the European Union to relax its stringent data protection regulations, which currently offer users significantly more privacy safeguards than comparable laws in the United States.
The timing is particularly noteworthy as it follows recent regulatory action against another social media platform in Spain. Last week, the country's financial markets supervisor imposed a €5 million fine on Elon Musk's X platform for allowing an unauthorized cryptocurrency operation to advertise using fraudulent publicity.
