EU: Data may be key in Microsoft-LinkedIn probe, Vestager says

Any probe into Microsoft’s acquisition of professional social network LinkedIn Corp. is likely to focus on the tie-up’s potential to leverage vast amounts of user data, the European Union’s antitrust chief said Friday.

The European Commission would look at whether “the data purchased in the deal has a very long durability and might constitute a barrier for others, or if they can be replicated so that others stand a chance to enter the market,” Margrethe Vestager said.

“We’ve done that kind of analysis in the past and it’s something we’re generally paying a lot of attention to,” she said in an interview in Copenhagen Friday.

The Dane, who took office at the end of 2014, has signaled a willingness to delve more into how merging companies leverage the treasure trove of data at their disposal. Data was one of the key considerations in the review of Facebook’s takeover of messaging service WhatsApp, even though her predecessor in the end concluded there were no data-usage concerns.

Vestager warned earlier this year that even though the regulator hasn’t found a data competition problem yet, “this doesn’t mean we never will.”

Full Content: Chicago Tribune

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