Blow to Meta as top EU court backs German antitrust regulator on privacy breaches
Meta stocks
Facebook parent company Meta on Tuesday (July 4) lost a fight against a German data curb order as Europe's top court backed the German antitrust watchdog's power to investigate privacy breaches.
The latest ruling from the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has the potential of handing antitrust authorities more leeway in Big Tech probes.
Watch | Meta adds parental control tools in Instagram and Facebook
Meta had challenged a 2019 order from the German cartel office to stop collecting userdata without their consent. The office called the practice an abuse of market power.
At issue was whether the German antitrust agency overstepped its authority by using its antitrust power to address data protection concerns, which are the remit of national data protection authorities.
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Meta harvests user data for behavioural advertising, a business model common to Big Tech.
Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, mounted a challenge to the finding. This prompted a German court to seek advice from the CJEU.
'Evaluating' court's decision, says Meta
In response to the ruling, a Meta spokesperson said: "We are evaluating the Court's decision and will have more to say in due course."
The spokesperson was quoted by Reuters.
The CJEU judges said regarding antitrust investigations that "it may be necessary for the competition authority of the member state concerned also to examine whether that undertaking's conduct complies with rules other than those relating to competition law".
The CJEU, however, said antitrust regulators must "take into consideration any decision or investigation by the competent supervisory authority pursuant to that regulation".
The ruling was welcomed by the German cartel office.
"Data is a decisive factor in establishing market power. The use of the very personal data of consumers by the large internet companies can also be abusive under antitrust law," its head, Andreas Mundt said as quoted by Reuters.
His counterpart at the French competition agency, Benoit Coeure, in a tweet, called the ruling a landmark decision on data protection as a competition parameter.
Thomas Graf, a partner at law firm Cleary Gottlieb, was more cautious about whether antitrust authorities would want to go into the details of privacy law.
"You still need to explain why it is relevant for antitrust law and demonstrate restrictive effects and abuse, and they will need to coordinate with the GDPR authorities," he said.
The EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a privacy and security law that imposes obligations on organisations anywhere that target or collect data related to people in the EU.
"Are antitrust authorities going to become GDPR regulators? I don’t think so," Graf said.
Graf was quoted by Reuters.
(With inputs from agencies)
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