Facebook faces legal setback in EU court decision on data privacy and ads
- Facebook has lost a legal challenge at the European Union’s top court over German antitrust decision that limited the way the company uses data for advertising
- The court sided with a 2019 German antitrust ruling that threatened to upend Meta’s business model of selling ads targeted to users based on online data
The Luxembourg-based court ruled that antitrust authorities can take into account any violations of data privacy rules as they investigate whether tech giants are abusing their dominance in the market by boxing out competitors.
The court sided with a 2019 German antitrust ruling that threatened to upend Meta’s business model of selling ads targeted to users based on data gleaned from how they spend time on its services.
Tuesday’s decision could pave the way for stricter scrutiny of tech companies. Europe has taken a pioneering role in reining in the power of big digital platforms with sweeping new standards taking effect next month and rules in the works on artificial intelligence.
The German Federal Cartel Office, or Bundeskartellamt, was not contesting the company’s use of customer data to target ads to users on Facebook.
Instagram launch of Twitter rival ‘Threads’ expected on Thursday
The EU court’s decision will have “far-reaching effects on the business models of the data economy,” said Andreas Mundt, president of the German Federal Cartel Office.