After a three-year investigation the German Competition Authority (GCA) found Facebook’s data policy to be abusive. In its assessment the authority stated that, by making the use of its social-networking service conditional upon users granting extensive permission to collect and process their personal data, Facebook unlawfully exploited its dominant position in the German market for social networks. Hence, the GCA has found a way – uniquely German-specific – to limit Facebook’s ability to gather, combine, and analyse data. In order to achieve this, it has acted as a self-appointed enforcer of data protection rules, establishing a violation previously undetected by any data protection authority and placing a ‘special privacy responsibility’ on dominant firms.
World Competition