European regulator: Facebook privacy questions may not raise competition worries

Europe’s competition commissioner said on Friday that even if Facebook has violated data protection regulations in some parts of the European Union, it doesn’t mean they are violating antitrust laws by abusing their dominant position in the market.

“The German authority is concerned that Facebook may have forced its users to accept privacy terms that aren’t in line with the data protection rules,” said Margrethe Vestager, according to the prepared text of her speech.

{mosads}“But as our German colleagues rightly point out, even if Facebook has broken those rules, that doesn’t automatically mean that it has also broken the competition rules as well.”

Vestager has developed a reputation as willing to pursue American tech companies for allegedly taking advantage of their market positions. Most notably, the European Union is currently pursuing three competition cases against Google.

German antitrust officials are examining whether Facebook abused its stance as the dominant social network while taking advantage of user data to build its business. The company’s primary stream of revenue is advertising, which is targeted at individual consumers.

“We are confident that we comply with the law and we look forward to working with the Bundeskartellamt to answer their questions,” a Facebook spokesperson said in an email.

Facebook also has access to some data collected by popular subsidiaries Instagram and WhatsApp. Recently, the company made waves when it announced that WhatsApp would share data with its parent company. The messaging application, which is massively popular around the world, has made its commitment to privacy a key part of its brand.

That has led to some complications in Europe.

The EU approved the $19 billion merger between Facebook and WhatsApp two years ago. But Vestager is now questioning the company on the policy changes.

Vestegar said that EU officials were “asking some follow-up questions” about the pivot, Bloomberg reports. 

“That they didn’t merge data wasn’t the decisive factor when the merger was approved, but it was still a part of the decision so therefore we’re asking some follow-ups to find out what’s going on,” Vestager told the outlet.

The EU can revoke merger approvals if they deem that incorrect information was initially provided.

Ali Breland contributed.