EU competition chief: Facebook probe a ‘grey area’

A German antitrust probe into Facebook’s user terms falls into a “grey zone between competition and privacy”, the EU’s competition chief said yesterday, describing the social network as having “a very dominant position”.

While social networks aren’t a specific concern for EU regulators, they are concerned if they see competition being closed down, Margrethe Vestager told Bloomberg TV yesterday.

Germany’s Federal Cartel Office is investigating whether Facebook abused its power as a social network by forcing customers to agree to unfair terms on how their data is used.