Germany cracks down on Facebook for ‘abuse of market power’

Christophe Morin/IP3 | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer and founder of Facebook Inc. attends the Viva Tech start-up and technology gathering at Parc des Expositions Porte de Versailles on May 24, 2018 in Paris, France.

Germany’s antitrust watchdog ruled on Thursday that Facebook abused its market dominance in collecting, merging and using user data.

Germany’s antitrust watchdog, called the Bundeskartellamt, said it was imposing far-reaching restrictions on how Facebook processes user data and gathers consent. Specifically, it said Facebook could no longer combine users’ data from separate apps like WhatsApp and Instagram without voluntary user consent. The decision is the culmination of a three-year investigation into the social media company by the German watchdog.

“In future, Facebook will no longer be allowed to force its users to agree to the practically unrestricted collection and assigning of non-Facebook data to their Facebook user accounts,” Andreas Mundt, president of the Bundeskartellamt, said in a press release Thursday.