Europe and Britain launched formal antitrust investigations into Facebook (FB.O) on Friday to identify if the worlds largest social network was utilizing customer information to unfairly complete with advertisers, in a brand-new assault on its service model.The different moves open new fronts in Europe versus the tech giant, whose platforms are used regularly by nearly 3 billion individuals and which is implicated of using its vast chest of advertisement information to much better compete with business from which it also collects data.The European Commission will assess whether Facebook broke EU competitors law to unjustly compete in its Marketplace classified business, while the British regulator will also look at whether it is using the exact same strategy in its dating offering.”We will look in detail at whether this information offers Facebook an excessive competitive advantage in particular on the online classified advertisements sector, where individuals purchase and sell products every day, and where Facebook also contends with companies from which it gathers information,” Vestager said.Online commerce has actually become ever more essential during the COVID-19 pandemic and Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg said in April that more than 1 billion people were visiting the Marketplace buying and selling service a month.The EU probe verified what a person familiar with the circumstance had told Reuters on May 26. REUTERS/Johanna Geron/Illustration/File PhotoRead MoreThe UK investigation is more comprehensive, looking at how Facebook collects data from marketers and the single sign-on that gives access to other websites with a Facebook login, and how that can benefit both Marketplace and the Facebook Dating business.The investigations are separate however will work together.