A PYMNTS Company

EU: Vestager warns tech giants on data use

 |  March 27, 2019

According to Bloomberg, the European Commission won’t shy away from using European Union antitrust rules to go after tech giants when their collection of personal data harms competition, Vestager said.

“Data accumulation in the hands of a single firm may raise competition concerns,” EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in response to a question by a member of the European Parliament.

“When firms collect personal data, a degradation of data protection may result in harm to competition that can be addressed by EU competition law. Data accumulation and data protection have already been taken into account in EU competition cases, such as the recent Apple/Shazam and Microsoft/LinkedIn merger cases. The Commission will continue investigating any such data-related concerns in future merger and antitrust cases.”

Read the full statement here http://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2019-000001-ASW_EN.pdf