BERLIN: Facebook's parent company Meta on Tuesday lost its appeal against German antitrust laws after the regulator received support from the court's top counsel.
After the German government forbade Meta from linking user data from its numerous services, including Instagram and WhatsApp, to their Facebook accounts for advertising purposes, Meta filed a legal challenge.
After concluding that Meta was abusing its dominant position in the social network industry, the German Federal Competition Authority barred the company from engaging in the data processing practise.
A court in Düsseldorf received a challenge from Facebook regarding the German ruling and forwarded the matter to the European court.
The advocate general for the EU court stated on Tuesday that although the antitrust authority lacks the authority to rule on a violation of data protection laws, compliance with such laws could be considered as a "important signal" in determining whether a business has violated competition laws.
The court adviser also mentioned that in this situation, there might be a ban on processing sensitive personal data, such a person's ethnicity, health, or sexual orientation.
A user "must be fully aware that, by an explicit act, he is making personal data public" in order for an exception to the restriction on such data to apply.
The advocate general continued, "Conduct consisting of visiting websites and apps, entering data into those websites and apps, and clicking on buttons integrated into those websites and apps cannot, in principle, be regarded in the same way as conduct that manifestly makes the user's sensitive personal data public."
Although the advocate general's recommendation is not legally enforceable, it frequently predicts the court's decision.
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