About 200 French media, including TF1, France Télévisions, Radio France or Le Figaro, Attack Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, accusing it of “illegal practices” in online advertising, their lawyers announced on Wednesday.
These media criticize the Internet giant as an “advertising orientation based on the massive and illegal collection of users’ personal data,” according to a press release from their lawyers, Didier Théophile of the firm of Darrois Parisina and the American firm Scott+Scott.
Unfair competition
The plaintiffs assigned a goal on Wednesday before the Court of Economic Activities of Paris (former distribution of trade).
They intend to “obtain compensation for mass economic damage (…) caused by the unfair commercial practices of the American giant.” The latter, according to them, “massively compiled the personal data of its users without informing or requesting (their) consent”, in “flagrant violation of the European data protection rules (GDPR).”
“When operating this data to offer ultra -rapt ads, Meta was able to capture most advertising investments at the expense of the media,” argue lawyers, calling a front as common as “historical.”
The list of complainants includes all types of media: private and public televisions and radios Oul France, La Voix, La Voix), the magazines (CMI, CMI, CMI, Oulym owners, Oul France, La Voix, La Voix), Videlines (CMI, CMI, CMI, owner of something of Altomí Platform.
Requested by AFP, Meta had not reacted immediately.
An online advertising concentration
The lawyers in the worried media argue that Meta and Google, another American Internet giant, monopolizes most of the online advertising market.
“Among them, they represent 75% of the market and 90% of its growth,” they say, pointing out that advertising “constitutes the essentials” of the goal income, that is, “98% of its global turnover.”
“Without unfair target practices, the French media would have benefited from a significantly higher part of digital advertising,” said lawyers.
Source: BFM TV
