Facebook to be Limited from Gathering Individual Data by the German Antitrust Office
Facebook’s data gathering policies have been clamped down on by the antitrust office of Germany. According to them, methods of data collection should be based on the consent of the owner of such information. Facebook makes use of uncommon methods to gather the information of individuals some of which include: gathering data from third party apps, through plug-ins, tracking pixels and without their consent. This ban was as a result of an investigation that began in March 2016.
It was considered a method used by the social media network giants to collect unbridled information from the users, according to the president Andreas Mundt. He says in the near future, Facebook would not be able to force users into agreements of getting their data. “In future, Facebook will no longer be allowed to force its users to agree to the practically unrestricted collection and assigning of non-Facebook data to their Facebook user accounts.”
Facebook has been able to create a unique database of information on each of its users thereby gaining market power. The major cause for this clamp down is as a result of the intentional commission of the term “voluntary consent” by Facebook:
“Voluntary consent means that the use of Facebooks services must not be subject to the user’s consent to their data being collected and combined in this way. If users do not consent, Facebook may not exclude them from its services and must refrain from collecting and merging data from different sources.” The German antitrust office said. It had been said that Facebook has appealed but has an estimated time of one month before the law is enforced in Germany.
