Alex Trelinski
A MADRID court has set an October 2025 trial date for a €550 million lawsuit by more than 80 Spanish media companies against Facebook owner Meta for allegedly violating EU data protection rules.
EU rules oblige companies to obtain users’ consent to create personalised advertising from their data.
The AMI media association AMI claims the US tech giant, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, created ‘unfair competition’ by ‘systematically’ breaking the law between May 2018 and July 2023.
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Meta offered advertising spaces based on ‘an illegitimately obtained competitive advantage’ to the detriment of traditional news media that respected the law, said AMI, which represents the owners of 83 newspapers including major titles like El Pais, El Mundo and La Vanguardia.
Meta’s lawyer Javier de Carvajal told a preliminary hearing in Madrid on Wednesday that the company denied any damage or violation of EU rules.
The court agreed on October 1 and 2 next year as the dates for the trial with AMI and Meta Ireland, the firm’s European headquarters.
The complainants’ lawyer Nicolas Gonzalez Cuellar told journalists that Meta says personal data are not used for personalised advertising and that it gained no competitive advantage.
Radio and television broadcasters in Spain have launched a separate lawsuit against Meta for the same reasons and are asking for €160 million in damages.
