Amazon and Meta Ordered to Level the Playing Field: UK Antitrust Settlements Close Unfair Advantage Investigations

 Amazon and Meta, two US tech companies, have settled separate UK antitrust investigations by agreeing to cease practices that provide them with an unfair advantage over merchants and customers on their platforms, according to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The investigations focused on Amazon's preference for merchants paying for additional services and how it selects suppliers for the "buy box," as well as Meta's use of data to gain an upper hand over competitors in providing classified data and online dating services.

As part of the settlement, Amazon will no longer be able to use data from third-party sellers to gain an edge, while Meta will allow competitors of Facebook Marketplace to opt out of having their data used to improve the platform. Both companies have welcomed the decision to close the cases.