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The German Federal Court ruled on June 23 (local time) that Facebook must comply with data collection restrictions imposed by the German government, claiming that Facebook is abusing its monopolistic market position and collecting user data without consent.
Facebook has been collecting data outside of its platform and linking that data to user accounts. Taking into account the fact that the data collection by Facebook is abusing its dominant position in the social network market, linking the data collected about Facebook to user accounts in February 2019 is subject to the voluntary consent of the user. It imposed a restriction that it should only be allowed in the case. In addition, they asked to stop collecting data and linking user accounts with data collected without user consent within months.
However, Facebook objected to this and demanded the removal of restrictions and withdrawal of the suspension and began a trial. A lower court ruling that the suspension would be temporarily banned until the result of the lawsuit on the removal of restrictions was found, but the German Federal Court supported the opinion of the German Federal Cartel Authority and dismissed the temporary injunction, ruling that Facebook should follow the suspension. I got off. Although the lawsuit on the removal of restrictions is still ongoing, Facebook needs to comply with the suspension due to restrictions.
In this case, the German court judge Peter Meyerbaek, who held the hearing, expressed the opinion that it is illegal not to give users the right to restrict data collection, and was alleged that the only option was to agree to the German Federal Cartel Authority’s collection of user data. It was put in. The judge explained that Facebook, the dominant operator, has a special responsibility to maintain competition in the social network market, and that the economic value of the data to users needs to be considered as well.
The German Federal Cartel Authority welcomed the ruling and said that if data is collected and used illegally, intervention under the antitrust law is recognized to prevent abuse of market power. Meanwhile, Facebook stressed that the ruling was only about the suspension, and that the ruling on the restriction itself was not issued. It also added that it will continue the appeals process for restrictions on the German Federal Cartel Authority. Facebook said that it did not abuse its status in violation of the antitrust law, and explained that there is no case of rapid change in product or service in Germany. Related information can be found here .
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