A debate on the Meta ruling opens the proceedings of the Observatory for Regulation and Competition in Digital Markets

The Observatory for Regulation and Competition in Digital Markets, promoted by ECIJA and Nebrija University, recently established, has organised its first activity of debate and analysis, without shying away from current issues. The said Meta ruling, in which Commercial Court No. 15 of Madrid ordered the technology giant led by Mark Zuckerberg to pay 542 million euros to 87 digital press publishers and Spanish news agencies, was the first topic of discussion in an open forum.

The legal aspects of ruling No. 98/2025, appealed by META and drafted with a view to the convergence between data protection and competition in the digital economy, attracted the interest of economists, communicators and lawyers at an event held at ECIJA's headquarters in Madrid.

In general terms, the recent ruling condemning Meta for unfair competition as a result of a breach of the European General Data Protection Regulation opens one of the most relevant debates of recent times: when can the misuse of personal data translate into an illegal competitive advantage?

The analyses of Piqueras, Díez Estella, Liñán and López

Rafael Piqueras, partner in competition law and EU law at ECIJA and director of the Observatory, along with Fernando Díez Estella, professor of commercial law at the Faculty of Economics and Business at Nebrija University, and Patricia Liñán, also a partner at ECIJA, pointed out that collaboration among various experts is "essential" at "a particularly intense moment regarding the regulation of the digital economy".

Reflecting the spirit of the Observatory, "which combines a rigorous and calm analysis with a response to relevant events to provide context and criteria," Piqueras identified the core of the discussion: whether this use of personal data is becoming a competitive factor and is no longer just a regulatory component.

Professor Fernando Díez Estella took the lead in the debate on this paradigm shift in law, regulation, and competition policy. The approval of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the "proliferation" of regulations in the European Union, and the consideration of data as "the oil of the 21st century", among other elements, define the great dilemma of a digital market affected by a "constant friction point between competition law and privacy".

According to Díez Estella, in this dispute about whether privacy is a parameter of competition, the ruling of July 4, 2023, in Germany sets the precedent for that of Madrid, where personal data and the possibility of its processing have become a "significant" key for competition.

“Continuous infringement”

For her part, Patricia Liñán, partner in competition law and EU law at ECIJA, interpreted the Meta ruling with the intention of opening the debate among experts in the courtroom. Based on a violation of Article 15 of the Unfair Competition Act (LCD), the ruling also argues that there has been a "continuous infringement" of several provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It argues that Meta’s "significant" competitive advantage comes from its ability to access and process data from millions of users "without a valid legal basis"; its use of "large" volumes of data, including "sensitive" data; and from creating "more accurate" profiles, "which allowed for more effective behavioral advertising".

Liñán explained that the judge ruled that the infringement technically allowed for a "massive and sophisticated" data processing, and did not attribute any significance to the role that Meta's technology might play. Regarding compensation and the calculation of damages, the ruling argues that Meta's advertising revenues in Spain between May 25, 2018, and August 1, 2023, stemmed from "unfair competition".

The exploitation of data

Finally, Daniel López, partner in Privacy and Data Protection at ECIJA, considered that, "at a moment of regulatory fatigue where every day there is something new to comply with", the ruling confirms that there is another view of personal data that indicates how they position the user and the company in the market and how this data exploitation is related to the advertising model. In this context, the value generated by data is "differential".

The debate among experts from ECIJA and Nebrija University, attended by some students from the Faculty of Economics and Business and its dean, Ana Fernández-Ardavín, as well as Jorge Galván, director of the Nebrija Foundation, will soon be followed by other activities in the form of conferences and working sessions within the framework of the Observatory for Regulation and Competition in Digital Markets.

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