Germans say Facebook abused position to illegally harvest user data
 

Bad day for Zuckerberg

Germany's top court ruled on Tuesday that Facebook had abused its dominance in social media to illegally harvest data about its users.

The ruling by the Federal Court of Justice, upholding a decision by Germany's antitrust watchdog, is a major victory for proponents of tougher regulation of the world's largest technology companies. The case had been closely watched after German regulators used a novel interpretation of competition law to rule against the social media giant last year.

The authorities said Facebook broke competition laws by combining data it collected about users across its different platforms, including WhatsApp and Instagram, as well as from outside websites and third-party apps. In Germany, Facebook now must alter how it processes data about its users. It was ordered to allow people to block the company from combining their Facebook data with information about their activities on other apps and websites.

https://fudzilla.com/news/51060-germ...vest-user-data