If there's one thing Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) is known for, aside from its flagship product, it's the firm's seemingly never-ending battle with lawmakers worldwide. In its latest dispute, the firm finds itself facing the German Data Protection Authority.
The DPA has banned Facebook from utilizing user data harvested from WhatsApp, citing the recent update to WhatsApp's terms of service. According to the DPA, the new terms of service may be illegal under German law. Before the ban, WhatsApp users had been previously restricted to only two courses of action; consent to the new ToS or stop using WhatsApp entirely.
The extraordinary powers used to ban Facebook stem from the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, the comprehensive legal framework regulating the use of data in the European Union. The measure is only temporary, with DPA currently seeking a more permanent action through the European Union.
"This order seeks to secure the rights and freedoms of the many millions of users who give their consent to the terms of use throughout Germany. My objective is to prevent disadvantages and damages associated with such a black-box procedure," said Johannes Casper, head of the DPA.
Facebook, and other tech giants such as Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL), have been fighting ongoing "war" with regulators worldwide for some time, but within the last year, measures taken by both tech firms and regulators appear to have grown far more comprehensive and decisive. The European Union has been a major growing force in the ongoing regulatory struggle. Still, recent moves by the Australian government, and growing dissent among lawmakers in the United States, have demonstrated that regulators are slowly growing more emboldened and appear less likely to capitulate to the demands of tech giants.
Facebook had previously faced stiff pressure from the Australian Government and was demanded to pay commissions to the publishers of articles shared through its site. After an aggressive response from the firm, the two sides managed to meet in the middle. The recent move by Germany, and recent moves by Australia (including claiming that Google and Apple's (NASDAQ: APPL) app stores are anticompetitive), however, may be a sign of growing resistance to tech firms.