By ignoring the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), did Mark Zuckerberg's company Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) deprive French media of advertising revenue that should have been theirs? That is the basis of a lawsuit filed on Wednesday, April 22, by 200 French media outlets at the Paris Economic Activities Tribunal, accusing the American company of "illegal practices."

The media organizations – including private broadcasters TF1 and RMC-BFM, public broadcasters France Télévisions and Radio France, the press groups Le Figaro and Les Echos-Le Parisien, and regional dailies – allege that Meta exploited the period when they were implementing user consent for data collection to run targeted advertising.

According to their lawyers, Didier Théophile and Christine Schiffner – of the Paris firm Darrois Villey Maillot Brochier and the American firm Scott+Scott, respectively – the media outlets suing the American firm accuse it of "advertising targeting based on the massive and unlawful collection of users' personal data." They wish to "obtain compensation for the massive economic harm (...) caused by the unfair business practices of the American giant," the lawyers wrote in a statement.

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