"A landmark regulatory intervention that seeks to apply structural antitrust remedies to cut big (ad)tech’s rights-hostile surveillance business models down to size has been revived after Germany’s federal court overturned an earlier ruling that had suspended enforcement of a ban on Facebook combining user data.
The upshot is the tech giant could be forced to stop combining the personal data of users of its various social services with other personal data it harvests on Internet users via its various social plug-ins and tracking pixels. Which in turn would amount to a structural separation of Facebook’s social empire.
That said, there’s still some mileage left in the legal process — which will likely delay any enforcement for months more at least. But the federal court has put the train back on the tracks.
As we’ve reported previously, the intervention by Germany’s antitrust regulator is seen as highly innovative as it joins the dots of EU privacy rights and competition law. So this case is being closely watched by regulators around the world."
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