If Facebook has a dominant market position, then the consent that the user gives for his data to be used is no longer voluntary, that's because he has no alternative - he has to use Facebook if he wants to use a social network.

Andreas Mundt

Categorized in : Top News

We are carrying out what can be seen as an internal divestiture of Facebook's data, facebook will no longer be allowed to force its users to agree to the practically unrestricted collection and assigning of non-Facebook data to their Facebook user accounts.

The only choice the user has is either to accept the comprehensive combination of data or to refrain from using the social network, in such a difficult situation the user's choice can not be referred to as voluntary consent.

For Facebook to collect data when I as a user am on Facebook, that's clear. The user knows this and has to expect it, what is problematic is the collection of data in places and moments where the user can't realistically expect that data is collected by Facebook.

The competitive connection is particularly strong from our point of view, because data are intrinsic to the business model, the entire business model relies ultimately on access to data and the reach of these platforms.

Until now, markets in which no money flows and in which no revenues are posted do not count as markets from a competition point of view. But that obviously goes against the logic of many Internet markets.

How many users are there and which data is concerned? Those are the better measurement categories when it comes to defining competition in the Internet.

These so-called narrow best-price clauses still limit competition between existing portals as well as competition between the hotels, the incentive for a hotel to reduce its prices on a hotel portal is very low when it has to charge higher prices on its own website at the same time.

Our investigation focused on the question whether the merger could lead to a shutting-out of other carmakers from digital maps and whether HERE rival TomTom would possibly be denied future access to carmakers and their suppliers, we were able to rule out such effects.

This is a very important step, since based on this decision, the Bundeskartellamt can now take action against specific anti-competitive practices by Google.