On December 19, 2017, the FCO has published a press release (here) and a background paper (here), outlining the preliminary assessment in the Facebook proceedings: Facebook is considered dominant in the German social media network market and to abuse its position through collecting and combining user data from third-party sources in a very broad way.
The allegations focus on collecting user data from third-party websites or Apps with a Facebook like button, even if the user does not click on it. The FCO finds that this practice infringes data protection laws, and Facebook’s general t&cs therefore violate the legal principles on general terms and conditions, which in turn qualifies as an abuse of dominance.
The fact that the FCO publishes a background paper pending proceedings is unusual. It may be explained by the great public interest in these proceedings, in which the FCO explores new territory. In addition, the FCO thereby puts some public pressure on Facebook. The proceedings raise the question whether antitrust law is the proper tool to tackle data protection law infringements. Silke Heinz is quoted on this in Global Competition Review, see here.
