Facebook Succeeds In Blocking German FCO’s Privacy-Minded Order Against Combining User Data

Facebook has succeeded in blocking a pioneering order by Germany’s Federal Cartel Office earlier this year that would have banned it from combining data on users across its own suite of social platforms — Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — without their consent. TechCrunch reports: Pioneering because the antitrust regulator had liaised with EU privacy authorities during a long-running investigation of Facebook’s data-gathering activities — leading it to conclude that Facebook’s conduct in the German market where it also deemed it to hold a monopoly position amounted to “exploitative abuse.” The Bundeskartellamt (FCO) order had been likened to a structural separation of Facebook’s businesses at the data level. Facebook appealed, delaying application of the order, and today’s ruling by the Dusseldorf court grants a suspension (press release in German) — essentially kicking the matter into very long legal grass.