A Spanish court has ordered Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to pay more than €540 million to local media outlets, ruling the American tech giant guilty of “unfair competition” and of violating data-protection regulations — a decision that may become a landmark case.

The lawsuit accused the company of using user data between 2018 and 2023 without consent to create personalized advertising profiles, generating enormous profit at the expense of Spanish media organizations that complied with privacy laws.

The complaint was filed by several media outlets, including members of the Association of Media Outlets (AMI), which welcomed the ruling as “a critically important victory for journalism, competition, and democracy.”

The Commercial Court of Madrid ordered Meta to pay €479 million to 87 Spanish digital publishers and news agencies belonging to AMI for gaining a significant competitive advantage through advertising on Facebook and Instagram, in violation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), according to a press release.

The ruling also adds more than €60 million in unpaid legal interest to that amount, as well as compensation for the Europa Press agency, which is not a member of AMI.

Meta, for its part, announced that it will appeal the decision, calling it “baseless” and claiming it “deliberately ignores how the online advertising industry works.”

The tech giant insisted that it “complies with all laws” and “provides users with a range of tools to control their experience on our services.”