Facebook wins in battle against German privacy regulators: Report

Facebook marked a victory in its battle against German privacy regulators who claim they can regulate the social network’s policies. According to this report , a Hamburg court halted enforcement of an order by the city’s data watchdog who had told Facebook to allow users to sign up to the social network under a pseudonym. Germany’s cartel office had opened an investigation into Facebook for suspected abuse of market power through breaches of data protection law. The watchdog said Facebook’s terms of service regarding its use of user data may abuse its possibly dominant position in the social network market. “For advertising-financed internet services such as Facebook, user data are hugely important. For this reason it is essential to also examine under the aspect of abuse of market power whether the consumers are sufficiently informed about the type and extent of data collected,” Federal Cartel Office President Andreas Mundt said in a statement. Facebook, the world’s biggest social network with 1.6 billion monthly users, makes its money from targeted advertising, thanks to the data it gathers about its users’ friends, opinions and activities from their postings. It has faced strong criticism from politicians and regulators in Germany, where data protection is strongly regulated, over its privacy practices. The report by Bloomberg also notes that German law doesn’t apply to Facebook’s privacy policy, as its European headquarters are in Ireland, the Hamburg court said in a preliminary ruling.