Spanish Media Association Sues Meta (META.US) for 550 Million in Damages.

An organization representing 83 Spanish media companies has filed a lawsuit against Meta, the parent company of Facebook, claiming unfair competition in the advertising market. The organization is the Spanish Media Association (AMI). The lawsuit was filed by the AMI Newspaper Publishing Association on Friday in a commercial court. They accuse Meta of systematically and massively violating European data protection regulations from May 25, 2018, to at least July 31, 2023. In their statement, they mentioned that they have filed an unfair competition lawsuit against Meta in the Madrid Commercial Court for persistently violating the requirements set by the European Data Protection Board on October 27, 2023. The AMI also highlighted that Meta repeatedly fails to comply with legislation on community data protection, disregarding the regulatory requirements that citizens must consent to their data being used for advertising profiling, as evidenced by various resolutions from European institutions responsible for this issue. These companies point out that Meta's actions mean "that this tech giant earns 100% of its revenue from selling targeted ads illegally. Without user consent, Meta systematically and extensively uses personal data of its platform users to track user information, enabling this US company to maintain dominance in the market based on illegally obtained competitive advantage."