EU Court of Justice · 4 July 2023
Meta Platforms v Bundeskartellamt
In plain English
Germany's competition authority could find that Meta's data terms broke the GDPR when examining abuse of dominance, while cooperating with data protection authorities. The Court read the 'contract' and 'legitimate interests' grounds narrowly, and said dominance does not rule out valid consent but weighs on whether it is free.
What the court ruled
a competition authority of a Member State can find, in the context of the examination of an abuse of a dominant position … that that undertaking's general terms of use relating to the processing of personal data and the implementation thereof are not consistent with that regulation …
the fact that the operator of an online social network holds a dominant position on the market for online social networks does not, as such, preclude the users of such a network from being able validly to consent …
Related
The official text is quoted word for word from the English version of the source named under it; only the version published in the court’s own records is authoritative. The plain-English line is Fino’s own summary, not legal advice.