Facebook proposed several commitments to the French competition authority (Autorite de la Concurrence) regarding the Autorite’s ongoing investigation into Facebook’s practices in advertising services. The Autorité submitted these commitments for public consultation, and invited actors from the sector to provide their feedback.

Criteo reported several practices implemented by Facebook:

• the withdrawal of Criteo's FMP status by Facebook in July 2018;
• "denigration" behaviour against Criteo since the end of 2017;
• the withdrawal of access to certain APIs, the User Level Bidding API (ULB API) and Order Level Reporting API (OLR API), used for bidding, product recommendations in ads and measurement of performance of ad campaigns.

In the course of the investigation, it became apparent that Facebook's practices were likely to impair the conditions of access to advertising inventories (all available advertising inventories) and to data concerning ad campaigns on Facebook under conditions that are not transparent or objective. These actions are also evaluated as "denigration" actions and difference of treatment.

As regards to the FMP program, the investigation revealed various difficulties in the relationship between Facebook and the FMPs, which relate to both the definition and the application of investment commitments, and which pertain to a lack of transparency, stability, objectivity, and to different treatment depending on the operator.

Furthermore, the conditions for removal the APIs that Facebook has put in place, in particular the ULB API, raise difficulties related in particular to limiting the ability of FMPs to provide value-added services through their own advertising technologies. In particular, the removal of the ULB API reduces Criteo’s ability to optimise its campaigns in order to drive users’ conversions, by using its own product recommendation tools in individual biddings.

In response to these competition-related concerns, Facebook proposed following commitments:

• “maintaining” the objectivity, clarity and non-discriminatory application of the FMP AdTech performance criteria
• providing compliance training to its sales teams.
• developing and making available a "recommendation functionality" to FMP AdTech partners who have the FMP AdTech badge.

The Autorité de la concurrence submitted these commitments for public consultation, and invited actors from the sector to provide their feedback.

(Autorité de la concurrence – 03.06.2021)

This document provides general information on the subject and does not constitute a legal opinion or recommendation. Consulting a specialist is recommended before taking an action. No claim arising from the content of or relating to this document can be asserted against NAZALI.