April 20, 2015 at 12:38The European Commission may begin a new trial with Google on the protection of user data
“I believe the issue of big data will be another serious problem that US IT companies will have to solve in the EU,” said lawyer Alec Burnside. Companies as large as Google and Facebook are creating huge databases of user information. According to critics, 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 start a new trial, according to The Wall Street Journal.
However, attorneys at US companies explain that user data is not owned by anyone. Any company can collect them: “Large amounts of data are ubiquitous, easy to obtain, and quickly obsolete. The income from ownership of such arrays decreases over time. And search engines like Bing or DuckDuckGo are far beyond the realm of scope. ”
“ In the world of the digital economy, personal data is an important intangible asset. This can very significantly affect the definition of key concepts, such as transparency, market dominance, benefits or harm to consumers, ”said Peter Hustinks, head of the European Committee for Information Security Oversight.
US companies compete unfairly and hide from taxes, European regulators suggest. Previously, they did not attach much importance to the information security of user data when analyzing mergers and acquisitions. However, in light of the recent revelations that began with the history of Snowden , their position has changed.
In connection with the arrival of Margrethe Westager as EU Commissioner for Competition, the European Commission will closely monitor information security. “Now arrays of user data have become on the network a bit of a currency. I’m not sure that when transmitting information about themselves, they truly understand that they are actually paying someone money, ”says Westager.
According to EU experts, Google has 33% of all user data at its disposal. For this indicator, Facebook follows it with 6.4%.
However, attorneys at US companies explain that user data is not owned by anyone. Any company can collect them: “Large amounts of data are ubiquitous, easy to obtain, and quickly obsolete. The income from ownership of such arrays decreases over time. And search engines like Bing or DuckDuckGo are far beyond the realm of scope. ”
“ In the world of the digital economy, personal data is an important intangible asset. This can very significantly affect the definition of key concepts, such as transparency, market dominance, benefits or harm to consumers, ”said Peter Hustinks, head of the European Committee for Information Security Oversight.
US companies compete unfairly and hide from taxes, European regulators suggest. Previously, they did not attach much importance to the information security of user data when analyzing mergers and acquisitions. However, in light of the recent revelations that began with the history of Snowden , their position has changed.
In connection with the arrival of Margrethe Westager as EU Commissioner for Competition, the European Commission will closely monitor information security. “Now arrays of user data have become on the network a bit of a currency. I’m not sure that when transmitting information about themselves, they truly understand that they are actually paying someone money, ”says Westager.
According to EU experts, Google has 33% of all user data at its disposal. For this indicator, Facebook follows it with 6.4%.