LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) – Meta Platforms, proprietor of Facebook, on Tuesday criticised a landmark German antitrust order to curb its data assortment as ‘clearly flawed’ and which undermines EU data safety guidelines.

Meta’s criticism of the German antitrust watchdog got here after the latter in 2019 mentioned the world’s largest social community had abused its market energy by amassing customers’ data with out their consent and ordered it to cease.

The competitors enforcer mentioned the data harvest included customers’ searching habits after they visited a web site with a Facebook ‘like’ button on it – even when an web surfer did not click on on that button.

The case underscores the mounting regulatory scrutiny worldwide of U.S. tech giants and measures to rein of their energy.

In the German case, nonetheless, the difficulty can also be whether or not the watchdog exceeded its authority through the use of its antitrust energy to deal with data safety issues.

Meta challenged the choice at a German court docket which subsequently sought steerage from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

The German antitrust order was “clearly flawed” with its “far reaching restriction on Facebook’s data processing”, Meta lawyer Hans-Georg Kamann advised the panel of 15 judges.

He criticised the German watchdog for not cooperating with the Irish data safety regulator which supervises Facebook as a result of its European headquarters is in Ireland.

“The Bundeskartellamt has brazenly undermined the substantive and procedural necessities of GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) legislation,” Kamann mentioned.

Joerg Nothdurft, lawyer for the German watchdog, dismissed the criticism, saying there had been contact with data safety regulators.

The German authorities defended the antitrust choice, saying that it was crucial for the competitors enforcer to make data safety evaluation as a part of its investigation as on-line marketplaces use customers’ data to achieve market energy.

The German order “serves the target of defending free competitors” and was not about data safety, its lawyer Philipp Krueger mentioned.

The case is C-252/21 Meta Platforms and others.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Susan Fenton)