On Thursday, France's antitrust regulator gave Facebook's parent company Meta two months to change access rules for its ad verification partners, saying the company could be unfairly exploiting its dominant market position in online advertising.。

In a statement, the Competition Authority said Meta must publish new access criteria for partners seeking to use its analytical tools to assess whether online advertising campaigns are indeed seen by people and whether they are displayed in ways that could damage the brand's reputation.。

The Competition Authority added that the new standards must be transparent, objective, non-discriminatory and proportionate。

The services provided by ad validation companies include measuring views of online ads, detecting fraudulent online traffic, and ensuring that customer ads do not appear on sites that harm their brand, such as porn sites.。

The French agency said Meta's invitation-only approach, which only allows the largest operators to access its data, could be seen as discriminatory in the areas of the company's "visibility" and "brand safety" products.。

The case was brought by Adloox, a small independent advertising verification company in France, which tried unsuccessfully to access Meta's data on these services between 2016 and 2022.。

Adloox complained to the Competition Authority last year, which found that barriers to entry caused by Meta constituted "direct and serious" harm to Adloox and the independent advertising validation industry as a whole.。