The European Commission may begin a new trial with Google on the protection of user data
“I think the issue of big data will be another serious problem that American IT companies will have to solve in the EU,” said lawyer Alec Burnside. Companies such as Google and Facebook create huge databases with information about users. Critics believe that because of this, companies are gaining an unfair advantage over smaller market players. And this violates the principles of equal competition. On the issue of protecting user data, the European Commission may begin a new trial, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.
However, US lawyers explain that user data is not owned by anyone. Any company can collect them: “Large data sets are spread everywhere, they are easy to get, and they quickly become obsolete. Income from owning such arrays decreases over time. And search engines like Bing or DuckDuckGo are far beyond the realm where scale matters. ”
“In the digital economy world, personal data is an important intangible asset. This can significantly affect the definition of key concepts, such as transparency, market dominance, benefit or damage to consumers, ”said Peter Hustinks, head of the European Information Protection Supervision Committee.
')
American companies are unfair competition and hide from taxes, suggest European regulators. Previously, they did not attach much importance to the information security of user data when analyzing mergers and acquisitions. However, in light of the latest revelations that began with the history of Snowden , their position has changed.
In connection with the arrival of Margrethe Vestager to the post of EU Commissioner for Competition, the European Commission will be more careful in monitoring information security. “Now the arrays of user data have become something like currency on the network. I'm not sure that people, when they pass on information about themselves, truly understand that they are actually paying someone money, ”says Vestager.
According to the estimates of EU experts, Google has 33% of all user data at its disposal. For this indicator, it is followed by Facebook with 6.4%.
However, US lawyers explain that user data is not owned by anyone. Any company can collect them: “Large data sets are spread everywhere, they are easy to get, and they quickly become obsolete. Income from owning such arrays decreases over time. And search engines like Bing or DuckDuckGo are far beyond the realm where scale matters. ”
“In the digital economy world, personal data is an important intangible asset. This can significantly affect the definition of key concepts, such as transparency, market dominance, benefit or damage to consumers, ”said Peter Hustinks, head of the European Information Protection Supervision Committee.
')
American companies are unfair competition and hide from taxes, suggest European regulators. Previously, they did not attach much importance to the information security of user data when analyzing mergers and acquisitions. However, in light of the latest revelations that began with the history of Snowden , their position has changed.
In connection with the arrival of Margrethe Vestager to the post of EU Commissioner for Competition, the European Commission will be more careful in monitoring information security. “Now the arrays of user data have become something like currency on the network. I'm not sure that people, when they pass on information about themselves, truly understand that they are actually paying someone money, ”says Vestager.
According to the estimates of EU experts, Google has 33% of all user data at its disposal. For this indicator, it is followed by Facebook with 6.4%.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/289774/
All Articles