The German
data protection agency wants to prevent Facebook from forwarding data collected
on WhatsApp to Facebook for the purpose of targeted marketing. Their position
is that it should be the user’s choice to connect his or her WhatsApp account
to Facebook. Facebook’s European headquarters in Ireland have the consequence
that the privacy requirements have to be in accordance with the European law.
Only recently the European Commission discussed about tightening up regulations
concerning privacy and security.
The two
phone applications “Facebook and “WhatsApp” are widely used everywhere in
Europe. Taking advantage of the “monopoly position” in order to increase the
value of the firm, as more successfully targeted advertisement could be shown,
is in my eyes a misuse of data to the expense of the users. Not conducting exactly
this move has been a prerequisite to allow the merger in the first place. Maybe
some people value the personalized advertisement more that the protection of
their data. As this is not the case for everyone it is the least thing that
Facebook should allow the choice and also provide an option to revert an once
made choice.
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