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Antitrust Über Alles. Whither Competition Law After Facebook?

By  |  May 27, 2019

Posted by Social Science Research Network

Antitrust Über Alles. Whither Competition Law After Facebook?

By Giuseppe Colangelo (University of Basilicata) & Mariateresa Maggiolino (Bocconi University)

After a three-year investigation the German Competition Authority found Facebook’s data policy abusive. In the authority’s assessment, by making the use of its social-networking service conditional upon users granting extensive permission to collect and process their personal data, Facebook unlawfully exploited its dominant position in the German market for social networks. Hence, the GCA has found a way – its way, quite German-specific – to limit Facebook’s ability to gather, combine, and analyze data. In order to achieve this goal, it has acted as a self-appointed enforcer of data protection rules, ascertaining a violation not detected by any data protection authority before and casting a ‘special privacy responsibility’ upon dominant firms.

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