The Bundeskartellamt’s ruling challenges a key part of Facebook’s business model.
Background: The Bundeskartellamt’s decision did not come unexpected. The authority had been working on an investigation into Facebook for several months, and disclosed during the first week of 2019 that a ruling was imminent.
What has been decided? The authority has stopped Facebook from forcing its users to agree to ‘practically unrestricted collection’ and assigning of non-Facebook data to their Facebook user accounts. From now on, the company will have to seek ‘voluntary consent’ and cannot threaten users to stop providing its services if they do not agree. The Kartellamt calls this ‘internal divestiture’ of Facebook’s data, and notes these practices have allowed Facebook to gain market power. Finally, the authority condemns Facebook’s data collection practices as violating EU data protection rules, and detrimental to users.
Next steps: The decision is not yet final, as Facebook has one month to appeal to the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court, and announced today it will do so.
