Facebook must change in Germany to avoid millions of fines

"Facebook will not be allowed to force its users to accept the almost unlimited collection of their data", which places the American giant "dominant position", told the press the head of the Bundeskartellamt, Andreas Mundt.

More precisely, Facebook will have to ask for the "explicit consent" of its 30 million German users before linking to their accounts the data obtained via other applications such as Instagram and WhatsApp, or via the button "I like" integrated with other web pages.

Each of these external sources may continue to accumulate personal information, but Facebook will no longer be able to "Fusion" based solely on its general terms of use, added Mundt.

Facebook will have to submit "within four months" a modification of its terms of use to the Bundeskartellamt, which will then have to "approve" them for maximum application within a year. If that does not happen, Facebook is liable to a fine of up to 10 million euros per month..

On a more general level, according to Mundt, this is "force the tech giants to adapt their business model", based on the exploitation of personal data for advertising purposes, "competition law", limiting the concentration of this information to a single actor.

The Bundeskartellamt began its investigations in mid-2016, after accusing Facebook of collecting data via third parties (Instagram, Whatsapp, Twitter and other websites and apps) of a large amount of money. information about its users.

According to preliminary findings released in 2017, the agency considers that the social network is abusing its position at "subordinate the use of the social network to the right (…) to collect data of all kinds from external sources and exploit them with the Facebook account".

In a statement, Facebook announced its intention to appeal, because according to him, the decision of the Bundeskartellamt "he abuses" of German law, underestimating the competition that is facing in Germany with "YouTube, Snapchat or Twitter".

"Popularity is not synonymous with market dominance", defends the group and recalls that it had already changed its privacy settings less than a year ago to bring them into line with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

In addition, Facebook, whose European headquarters are in Dublin, insists that it depends on the Irish data protection authority, not the German agency.

The Californian group, which turned 15 on Monday, comes out of 2018, marked by a series of polemics almost interrupted, accused of having served as a platform for political manipulation or not having properly protected the personal data of its users .

Facebook tries to forget the scandal of Cambridge Analytica which allowed the use of its users' data, without their knowledge, for political purposes during the US presidential campaign that resulted in the election of Donald Trump.