Shares of Meta Platforms (META) are slightly lower today after the European Union issued its first antitrust fine against the social media giant. In fact, Meta got hit with a nearly 800 million euros ($841 million) fine for “abusive practices” tied to its Marketplace classified ads. The European Commission found that Meta had unfairly leveraged its social network to benefit Marketplace by automatically linking it to Facebook and collecting ad data from rival platforms to strengthen its own services.
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Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition executive vice president, stated that Meta’s practices harmed other online ad services. Meta responded by denying any “competitive harm” and pointing out that users can choose whether to engage with Marketplace. As a result, Meta plans to appeal the decision.
One of Several Regulatory Challenges
This investigation into Marketplace was just one of several regulatory challenges faced by Meta in the EU. Although this was the first antitrust fine issued by the EU, it was not the first one ever. In fact, Meta was penalized 1.2 billion euros last year for violating privacy laws. In addition, it remains under scrutiny for other issues, such as child safety and election integrity.
Is Meta a Buy or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on META stock based on 41 Buys, three Holds, and one Sell assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 74% rally in its share price over the past year, the average META price target of $661.55 per share implies 14% upside potential.
