A “dominant position” in the German antitrust law alert. In the case of the social network, the Federal cartel office considers the competition at risk, and set a deadline.
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The Data Octopus Facebook
The Federal cartel office has prohibited Facebook to collect outside of the Online network data of its users – as happens, for example, via “Like”button on other websites. Authorities chief Andreas Mundt said, Facebook have in Germany a dominant position in the market and miss you need. This was a breach of competition law. Facebook wants to fight back against the vote in court. Because of the link between data protection and Competition authority, the case could be groundbreaking, and for many years by the instances.
The German cartel office Facebook also, the merge on third-party sites collected data with information said, were stored in entries of the users on the Online platform. The authority considered belonging to the group services such as Instagram and Whatsapp as third-party sources. The Online network gets one year to change his behavior, and has to present within four months of the solution proposals. Within a month, the company can appeal to the higher regional court in Düsseldorf against the decision.
Facebook: “Popular, but not dominant in the market”
Facebook counters that the Online network is popular, but not dominant position in the market. It does not violate the EU data protection regulation. On their compliance with the data protection authorities and non – competition the guardian woke up in the other.
The entrance to the Federal cartel office in Bonn – directly adjacent to the second seat of the Federal President (archive)
Federal Minister of justice Katarina Barley, welcomed the cartel office’s decision “strongly”. Facebook have expanded the collection and linking of user data “in the meantime, far beyond its own platform,” said the SPD politician of the news Agency Reuters. “The interfaces of the group, attack the data not only with other services of the group, but also with numerous Apps and web services from third parties,” criticized you.
All or nothing
The Federal cartel office investigated so far, only the collection of data outside of the Facebook core platform with the “Like”Button, or the evaluation service Facebook Analytics. A Central point of criticism of the Bonn-based antitrust enforcers is that you must agree to the data collection “as a total package”. Who is not willing to do so, may not use Facebook.
Many users are not aware that their behaviour is managed and evaluated on a number of websites of Facebook and, to the extent that there are items such as the “Like”button embedded in it. The company is so much more information than the users on the Online platform of self-price.
jj/sti (dpa, rtr)