Germany closes Meta case after data measures agreed

Germany's antitrust watchdog said on Thursday that Meta had taken measures that give users greater control over how their data gets used on its platforms, ending a long-running dispute.

The Federal Cartel Office in 2019 ordered the U.S. tech giant, then still called Facebook, to stop merging user data collected through its subsidiaries and other websites unless users gave their consent.

Meta lodged legal complaints against the decision but, after suffering setbacks in German and EU courts, moved to implement new measures to address the concerns.

"Users now have much greater control over how their data are combined," cartel office president Andreas Mundt said in a statement.

Steps include the introduction of an "accounts center" that allows users to keep data from Meta's different social networks, such as Facebook and Instagram, separate, and implementing cookie settings to separate Facebook data from other data.

Users will also be shown prominent notifications when accessing Facebook with direct links to the newly designed consent options, and Meta will only store data for security purposes temporarily, for a set period of time specified in advance.

Meta's measures were deemed to be "sufficiently effective" to close the case, the cartel office said, adding the tech giant had also withdrawn a pending appeal before a German court against the body.

The measures have already been taken or will be taken in the coming weeks, it added. 

As a result of the cartel office's 2019 "groundbreaking" move, Meta had made "very significant changes to the way it handles user data,"  said Mundt. 

"The main change is that using the Facebook service no longer requires users to consent to Meta collecting a limitless amount of data and linking such data to their user accounts, even if these data are not even generated while using Facebook," he said. 

The anti-cartel watchdog has recently placed Meta and fellow tech titans Microsoft, Amazon, Apple and Google parent Alphabet under increased scrutiny thanks to new legislation.

The German Competition Act, which came into force in 2021, gives the Federal Cartel Office greater powers to clamp down on anti-competitive behavior by tech giants.