Facebook-owner Meta Group has been stopped again from using data at its own discretion to reach astronomical growth and status after it was probed into targeted and personalised advertising campaigns.
A group of competitive regulators are investigating Facebook again as part of a separate investigation into giants using anti-competitive practices. The ruling reached by the The Court of Justice in Luxembourg and reactions have shamed Meta Group as deliberately flouting privacy rules which came into effect in 2018.
The German Federal Cartel Office said the impact would be greatly felt by all business models that leverage the data economy. The group was accused of significant flaws and weaknesses particularly in their protocols to protect children in online forums. Warnings have been issued to Meta over seeking consent to use data from user verification and target campaigns to sell virtual reality products.
The ruling gives regulators more power to challenge the likes of Google, Meta and Microsoft in how they deal with mass data sets.
The 2019 decision to ban Facebook combining data with WhatsApp to target ads was also given validation on Tuesday despite Facebook’s retaliation arguing that privacy laws and anti-trust rules had been wrongly related to each other.
