The EU’s Facebook Marketplace Decision: The Gatekeeper That Wasn’t
Sometimes the most important thing about a gatekeeper case is that there was no gatekeeper after all. That is the quiet lesson of the European Union General Court’s judgment in Meta Platforms v. Commission, which annulled in part the European Commission’s decision to designate Meta as a gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
The ruling is narrow. It concerns only Facebook Marketplace, and it turns largely on procedural rather than substantive grounds. But narrow rulings can still cast long shadows, and this one does. The court’s reasoning reaches beyond Marketplace to questions that will shape future DMA enforcement.
This post argues that the decision’s greatest importance lies not in what it says about Facebook Marketplace, but in what it signals for the DMA’s future application. After outlining the case’s background, it explores three implications: for qualitative gatekeeper designations, for the DMA’s “gateway” logic, and for the wisdom of applying the DMA to challengers rather than incumbents.