The company will appeal the order, but will have to follow the order in the meantime
Picture this: Your mom is talking to a friend on Whatsapp, discussing a particular school for her niece. When she logs into facebook, to her utter surprise, she sees an advertisement of the same school.
OR, an online trainer with whom she had a short chat about an online class for you, appears on her Facebook as “People you may know.”
Why does this happen?
Facebook owns all three – Facebook, Whatsapp, and Instagram. All your contacts and content (things you say) from these platforms are combined by Facebook to create a ‘profile’ of a user. The user is then shown ads that are of interest to that ‘profile’.
What if we don’t want that?
Sorry. This is a part of ‘Terms of Use’ that you have to sign if you want to use Facebook. No choice.
So, what happened in Germany?
A top court in Germany {the Federal Court of Justice (BGH)} has given an order that:
Unless the user specifically agrees, Facebook cannot merge data from 3 platforms.
Facebook cannot deny users the use of the platform if they do not agree to merge data. (In short, that Terms of Use needs to change) In 2019, Germany’s Federal Cartel Office (FCO) had ruled (ordered) that Facebook cannot combine data from its three platforms. This is against the rules of privacy (a person’s right to decide who sees which of their chats and content). Facebook appealed against that order in the higher court. The higher court ruled that the FCO is right.
What did Facebook say? What will it do now?
Facebook has said that it will appeal the order in a lower court. While BGH has said that Facebook will have to comply with the order while the appeal
is pending, Facebook has made it clear that there will be no immediate changes for users in Germany. This means that Facebook will not
change its Terms of Service to follow the court’s order.