Margrethe Vestager EU Competition Commissioner is placing a renewed focus on Facebook’s privacy-policy in light of new changes announced last month that will enable the social network and Instagram photo-sharing site to pull data from WhatsApp, Bloomberg reported. In October 2014, the social network giant won approval from the EU competition authority to move forward with its $19 billion takeover of WhatsApp.
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As Europe’s top antitrust enforcer, Vestager continues to eye how large technology companies are handling data and using their power in market. On Friday at the Data Ethics event in Copenhagen, Vestager focused on the importance of security and privacy in the digital world. “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,” she said. “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.” Read Vestager’s full speech here.
Last month, Vestager ordered the U.S. company Apple Ireland 13 billion euros ($14.7 billion) in back taxes plus interest. She also accused Google of unfair market place practices.
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