I wish anti-trust regulators would actually <i>do</i> something. The unchecked power and behavior of corporations is depressing. Take WhatsApp away from Facebook. They broke the one condition there was for the acquisition to be allowed. They have no legal or moral right to continue owning it.
If I remember correctly Facebook was only allowed to buy Whatsapp in France because they promised not to share user data between the two services. The German data protection agency basically didn't say anything only because the french said it already.<p>Now Facebook does it's mix-and-mash anyways.<p>I'd have expected to hear something out of France about this. Did I just miss it?
> If Facebook fails to comply, the cartel office could impose fines of up to 10 percent of the company’s annual global revenues, which grew by 37 percent to $55.8 billion last year.<p>I hope they go for the maximum fine.
Facebook's statement is... interesting.<p>> The Bundeskartellamt underestimates the fierce competition we face in Germany<p>Which competition? The only viable social network in Germany that came close to Facebook was Lokalisten, which shuttered finally in 2016.
> “The decision by the cartel authority, known as the Bundeskartellamt in German, allows Facebook to continue collecting data from its services like WhatsApp and Instagram. But the company will not be permitted to link this information to Facebook user accounts unless a user has explicitly consented.”<p>Facebook will just get away with a dark pattern of showing some new consent agreement to “improve your user experience” and nag people until they accept out of frustration.<p>Can’t any regulators just say, “No, you can’t do this under any circumstances. Period.”? Or come up with laws that prohibit these practices, knowing fully well the size and influence of Facebook and its properties (applying it to similar companies/models as well)?
What really interests me is the lack of scrutiny towards Google. It all seems focused on Facebook, meanwhile what Facebook did was set a trend that others followed. Hopefully there is more to come, but it is definitely too little too late.
Going by Facebook's history .... what are the chances they abide by any of this?<p>Facebook has shown they're going to do what they want how they want regardless of public perception, deals with other companies, other company rules, and arguably laws already in place.