BRUSSELS 

The European Commission launched a probe to find out if social media platform Facebook had breached EU competition rules with its advertising practices, the institution announced on Friday.

The antitrust investigation will determine if the social media giant violated the competition rules “by using advertising data gathered in particular from advertisers in order to compete with them in markets where Facebook is active such as classified ads.”

The EU executive body will also assess if the tech company ties its online classified ads service Facebook Marketplace to its social network.

“In today's digital economy, data should not be used in ways that distort competition,” said Margrethe Vestager, the EU Commission’s executive vice president for digital.

“We will look in detail at whether this data gives Facebook an undue competitive advantage in particular on the online classified ads sector, where people buy and sell goods every day, and where Facebook also competes with companies from which it collects data”, Vestager added.

The EU executive body’s preliminary investigation raised concerns that Facebook might have used data obtained from competing providers in the context of their advertising on the social network. 

Maintaining fair competition in the EU’s internal market is one of the few exclusive competencies of the EU. It allows the European Commission to fine companies for breaching EU antitrust law.