Writing on Facebook's wall

Targeted advertising is under threat

Meta — the erstwhile Facebook (FB) — has endured a tsunami of bad news in the recent past. It faces an ongoing antitrust lawsuit by America’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the FTC is looking at expanding the scope of investigation, from “personal social networking” to virtual reality (VR). Just by allowing the suit to proceed, US courts have clarified a subtle point, with deep implications for other tech giants. The stock has been hammered. It dropped by 26 per cent after reporting poor results. The entire business model of targeted advertising may be vulnerable. The company has been hurt