This article is more than 1 year old

'Dominant' Facebook hauled over coals by German competition authority

Firm said to have broken data protection rules

A competition authority in Germany has opened proceedings against Facebook for allegedly violating data protection rules.

The cartel investigator in Germany, known as the Bundeskartellamt, announced that it has launched itself at the American company, as well as its Irish and German subsidiaries, on "an initial suspicion that Facebook's conditions of use are in violation of data protection provisions."

Facebook slurps up personal user data "from various sources" according to the authority. It creates user profiles based on this data and offers its third-party service partners the ability to target users on what Facebook admits is an individual, and not an anonymised, basis.

According to the authority's president, Andreas Mundi: "For advertising-financed internet services such as Facebook, user data are hugely important. For this reason it is essential to also examine under the aspect of abuse of market power whether the consumers are sufficiently informed about the type and extent of data collected."

Facebook's privacy policy is explicit in stating that, when users download or use third-party services, those services "can access your Public Profile, which includes your username or user ID, your age range and country/language, your list of friends, as well as any information that you share with them. Information collected by these apps, websites or integrated services is subject to their own terms and policies."

This is somewhat different to how it shares information with advertisers on its own site. Facebook states: "We use all of the information we have about you to show you relevant ads. We do not share information that personally identifies you (personally identifiable information is information like name or email address that can by itself be used to contact you or identifies who you are) with advertising, measurement or analytics partners unless you give us permission."

The Bundeskartellamt said: "In order to access the social network, users must first agree to the company's collection and use of their data by accepting the terms of service."

However the statement from the watchdog also claimed: "It is difficult for users to understand and assess the scope of the agreement accepted by them. There is considerable doubt as to the admissibility of this procedure, in particular under applicable national data protection law.

"If there is a connection between such an infringement and market dominance, this could also constitute an abusive practice under competition law," it concluded.

“We are confident that we comply with the law and we look forward to working with the Federal Cartel Office to answer their questions,” a Facebook spokesperson told El Reg. ®

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