In the suit filed on Monday, the group representing over 80 Spanish media houses including popular news sites like El País, El Mundo, ABC and La Vanguardia, accused Meta of gaining an unfair competitive advantage in digital adverts by utilising users’ information without their consent.
The EU General Data Protection Regulation which went into effect in 2018, mandates websites to obtain user’s consent before utilising or storing their personal data.
However, in a statement shared with Reuters on Monday AMI claimed it filed the suit because a large majority of the ads placed by Meta’s platforms such as Facebook and Instagram are powered by clients’ personal data acquired without consent.
They further claimed that Meta’s “massive” and “systematic” use of personal data
gave the company’s platforms an unfair edge in creating and presenting personalised adverts to users.
The group’s attorney, Nicolas Gonzalez Cuellar also told Reuters that similar suits will likely be filed against the company in other EU countries.
“Of course, in any other EU country, the same legal proceeding could be initiated,” Cueller said.
While Meta has yet to give an official response to the suit, a source from the company stated that Meta has not received the filings.
The new case comes amid Meta’s legal battle with 42 states in the United States of America over similar accusations of data protection issues and the alleged damage done by the company to the mental health of young people in the country.
Filed in October, the states claimed in the suit that Meta and its social media platforms violated the US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by collecting data on children under the age of 13 without their parents’ consent.
