FILE PHOTO: Morning commute traffic streams past the Meta sign outside the headquarters of Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc in Mountain View, California, U.S. November 9, 2022. REUTERS/Peter DaSilva/File Photo
MADRID (Reuters) - Facebook owner Meta Platforms will face a trial in October 2025 in Spain over a 551 million euro ($582 million)complaint lodged by more than 80 media companies accusing it of unfair competition in advertising, a Madrid court said on Friday.
The hearings will be held on Oct. 1 and 2, the 15th Madrid commercial court said in a statement.
The AMI media association, which represents 87 Spanish media firms, filed a lawsuit last year alleging Meta violated EU data protection rules between 2018 and 2023.
The newspapers argue that Meta's "massive" and "systematic" use of the personal data of its Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp platform users gives it an unfair advantage in designing and offering personalised ads, which they say constitutes unfair competition.
A Meta spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Listed newspapers publishers Prisa, which owns El Pais newspaper, and Vocento, which owns ABC Newspaper, are among the complainants.
Separately, Spanish TV and radio broadcasters associations UTECA and AERC said last month they had filed a 160 million euro lawsuit against Meta on the same grounds.
The Spanish suits represent efforts by legacy media to fight tech giants in both courts and legislatures to preserve their revenue, arguing such firms should pay fair fees for using and sharing their content.
Some of these attempts have backfired in countries like Canada and Australia, where Meta has blocked users from reposting news articles.
In its other markets, Meta has been scaling back its promotion of news and political content to drive traffic and says news links now represent only a fraction of users' feeds.
($1 = 0.9471 euros)
(Reporting by Inti Landauro, editing by Aislinn Laing and Jason Neely)
