Meta might be penalized by South Korea's antitrust office for allegedly failing to protect local consumers on its Facebook and Instagram marketplaces against fraudulent transactions.

Meta vs. South Korea

Citing unnamed sources, Yonhap News Agency reported on Friday that the Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC) had concluded its probe for Meta's possible violations of the country's e-commerce law and had sent an examination report to the parent company of Facebook and Instagram late last year.

The agency's commissioners will convene to review the report and make a formal decision after studying it.

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Meta Fails to Establish Measures to Handle Consumer Issues in Facebook, Instagram Marketplaces

According to Yonhap, the FTC said Meta failed to establish mechanisms to handle consumer issues in the Facebook and Instagram marketplaces.

The agency noted that the company lacked measures to protect and provide a remedy to users of Facebook and Instagram marketplaces when complaints and disputes arose over sales transactions, as required by South Korean e-commerce law, Reuters reported.

The sources told Yonhap that the FTC believes that Facebook and Instagram, which are not registered as e-commerce businesses, qualify as e-commerce platform operators because of the markets they operate.

The report came after a consumer protection watchdog in South Korea said it was investigating the practices of major overseas shopping platforms such as Temu and Alibaba's AliExpress.

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