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EU: Facebook probe in gray area between antitrust and privacy

By  |  September 14, 2016

A German antitrust probe into Facebook’s user terms falls into a “gray zone between competition and privacy,” the European Union’s competition chief said, describing the social networking site as having “a very dominant position.”

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    While social networks aren’t a specific worry for EU regulators, they are concerned if they see competition being closed down, Margrethe Vestager told Bloomberg TV in an interview Wednesday.

    Germany’s Federal Cartel Office is investigatingwhether Facebook abused its power as a social network by forcing customers to agree to unfair terms on how their data is used.

    Data and how it may be misused by fast-growing technology giants is a focus for Vestager, who’s probing Google on several fronts and quizzing Facebook on a U-turn over its use of WhatsApp data, two years after the EU cleared the deal. She’ll soon have to examine Microsoft Corp.’s acquisition of professional social network LinkedIn Corp. when they file for EU approval.

    Full Content: Bloomberg

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