Meta defends advertising model in €550m GDPR trial
02/10/2025 | Barrons
Meta is defending its advertising model in a lawsuit brought in a Spanish commercial court, where a group of 83 media outlets is seeking €550 million in damages.
The main Spanish media association, AMI, claims that Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, engaged in unfair competition due to its "systematic and massive non-compliance" with EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules between 2018 and 2023. These rules require companies to obtain explicit user consent for creating personalised advertising from their data.
AMI argues the tech giant's predatory behaviour threatens the survival of news media worldwide. Meta denies any wrongdoing or damage, stating that the lawsuit is baseless and ignores the evolution of the advertising industry. Meta executives told the Madrid court that their sophisticated advertising algorithms are now as important as, or more important than, the raw user data itself. Closing arguments are scheduled for Thursday.
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