Facebook and the European Commission are butting heads yet again as the EU claims that Facebook has provided misleading information to the Commission when detailing its acquisition of WhatsApp back in 2014.
Said misleading information stems from the nature of the data-sharing agreement between Facebook and WhatsApp. Back in 2014, Facebook told the EU that data between accounts on Facebook and WhatsApp could not be linked automatically. However, Facebook recently introduced a new privacy policy that would allow WhatsApp to share user data with Facebook in order to map social connections and deliver relevant ads on both services.
This new private policy directly clashes with the information Facebook provided to the European Commission, which leads to the EU claiming that Facebook has provided inaccurate data. “Companies are obliged to give the Commission accurate information during merger investigations. In this specific case, the Commission’s preliminary view is that Facebook gave us incorrect or misleading information during the investigation into its acquisition of WhatsApp,” says Margrethe Vestager, Commissioner of the European Commission.
Facebook has since issued a statement of their own, claiming that the company has “provided accurate information about our technical capabilities and plans, including in submissions about the WhatsApp acquisition and in voluntary briefings before WhatsApp’s privacy policy update this year”. “We’re pleased that the commission stands by its clearance decision, and we will continue to co-operate and share information officials need to resolve their questions,” reads the statement.
Source: The Verge, European Commission
