A lawsuit has been filed in Spain against social media behemoth Meta by a group representing over 80 media outlets, the Asociacion de Medios de Informacio, with the group alleging the big tech giant has violated European data privacy laws.
The group represents major news brands such as El Mundo and El Pais, and claims Meta disregarded regulations making users to give permission prior to their personal information is used for digital advertising, occurring from 2018-2023.
“The systematic and massive use of personal data of users of Meta platforms, tracked without their consent throughout their digital browsing, would have allowed the American company to offer the sale of advertising space on the market based on an illegitimately obtained competitive advantage,” the group said.
Legal representation for the group said that in “any other EU country, the same legal proceeding could be initiated.”
Previously, European Union regulators ruled that Meta required user content for specific targeted advertising.
Globally, lawmakers and media have called for businesses such as Meta and Google to begin paying fairly for news content.
In Canada, Google achieved a settlement to pay $100 million per year to news outlets in exchange for using links in search results.
According to Google, the Canadian Online News Act had already requires payments from tech companies with 20 million unique monthly users and annual profits of over than $1 billion.
In response, Google threatened to block content in Canada and Meta already has stopped news content for Canadian users.
Australia passed a comparable law making tech companies agree on content agreements with publishers.
The online advertising market is dominated by Google, which is facing a federal antitrust lawsuit for its alleged monopoly.
A recent study by Columbia University estimated that Google and another company owe at least $14 billion dollars annually to news outlets for the ad revenue they generate from their search traffic.
