German court halts Facebook data collection ban: Report
Facebook won its appeal of a German antitrust ruling on Monday, according to a recent report.
The initial ruling from February, from the German Federal Cartel Office, said the social media site should not be able to use customer data from other apps and websites for targeted advertisements on Facebook itself without user consent.
On Monday, Germany’s Higher Regional Court suspended the ruling, saying the court had “serious doubts” about the legal basis for the decision, The Wall Street Journal reported.
“Even if the contested data breached data-protection rules, that would not be an infringement of competition law at the same time,” the court reportedly said.
The Federal Cartel Office president said Monday the organization plans to appeal the court’s ruling on the appeal.
“Data and data handling are decisive factors for competition in the digital economy,” German Federal Cartel Office President Andreas Mundt said in a statement, the Journal reported. “These legal issues are highly significant for the future state of competition in the digital economy. We are convinced that we can act in this area based on the existing antitrust law.”
Facebook declined to comment.
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In the February ruling from the Federal Cartel Office, the organization accused Facebook of "exploitative abuse" by forcing users to agree to allow it to collect data from other Facebook-owned services like WhatsApp and Instagram, as well as third-party websites through the "Like" or "Share" features.
In a statement at the time, Facebook said it disagreed with the office and would appeal its ruling “so that people in Germany continue to benefit fully from all our services.”
The appeal comes at a time when Facebook is under scrutiny in both Europe and the U.S. for the way it collects information on users.
In July, Facebook agreed to pay a record $5 billion fine for privacy violations and faces an impending antitrust investigation by U.S. regulators, but shares climbed in premarket trading on Thursday, allayed by better-than-expected earnings.
That deal included requirements for Facebook to create an independent board tasked with overseeing company-wide privacy-related efforts and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to personally certify that the company is meeting the FTC’s requirements on a quarterly and annual basis. A false statement could result in civil penalties or even criminal charges.
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It ended a more than year-long probe into whether the tech giant violated a 2012 order -- in which the company promised to protect consumers’ information -- about privacy after it inadvertently allowed political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to access the personal data of millions of users.
FOX Business’ Megan Henney and Fox News’ James Rogers contributed to this report.