Spanish court orders Meta to pay nearly half a billion euros in damages to media outlets

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Spanish legacy media companies in Spain scored a victory against social media giant Meta after a Madrid-based court ordered Thursday that it must pay news outlets nearly half a billion euros in damages.

According to a court statement, the mercantile court No. 15 of Madrid ruled that Mark Zuckerberg’s social media giant had exercised an unfair market advantage by extracting personal data of internet users in violation of European law and using it to create more effective advertising.