For Europeans, CJEU's Meta ruling could potentially close this chapter on surveillance capitalism, which relies on denying users a free choice over its tracking
Mark your calendar European friends: July 4th could soon be celebrated as independence-from-Meta's-surveillance- capitalism-day …
TechCrunch Natasha Lomas
Context & Ripple Effects
This ruling sits within an expanding European challenge to Meta’s data practices. The court had already affirmed that consumer-protection bodies can pursue GDPR-related infringements in a separate case involving Meta, widening the range of institutions able to contest platform data use.
The immediate significance is that a competition authority’s intervention in Meta’s advertising model has judicial backing, rather than being confined to privacy regulators alone.
First-order effects
- Meta faces stronger legal pressure to alter the data combination and tracking practices targeted by Germany’s Federal Cartel Office, after the CJEU upheld the authority’s ability to impose that intervention in the Federal Cartel Office case.
- European users gain a more credible route to meaningful choice over tracking where Meta’s service conditions or ad model depend on personal-data use.
Second-order effects
- Competition regulators can more confidently examine data practices as part of platform-market power, creating a complementary enforcement channel alongside GDPR authorities.
- Meta’s ad-business design becomes more exposed to remedies that limit cross-service data use, while other data-dependent platforms must account for competition scrutiny of consent and tracking arrangements.
Third-order effects
- If courts continue to support this overlap between competition and data-protection enforcement, dominant platforms may face governance rules that treat data access and user choice as market-structure issues, not solely privacy-compliance questions.
- The longer-running dispute is likely to focus on what counts as freely given choice in platform interfaces—a question sharpened by the later ruling that social networks cannot retain advertising data indefinitely in the data-retention case.
The trend: European oversight is converging on the idea that dominant platforms’ tracking choices can be constrained through both privacy and competition law.
Related: Interface-Neutral Platform Governance · Meta · CJEU · CJEU backs German regulator’s Meta ad-business order · EU court affirms consumer agencies can pursue GDPR cases · CJEU limits indefinite ad-targeting data use
Related Coverage
- ‘Huge blow for Meta’ as EU's top court sinks legal basis for targeted advertising on Facebook Fortune · David Meyer
- European Court of Justice Declares Meta's GDPR Approach Largely Illegal Pixel Envy · Nick Heer
- The impact of legislation like GDPR goes far beyond their jurisdictions, because it's hard to segment a data architecture for just some users. This ruling that Meta must provide its service to users who do not consent to tracking and processing of their personal data is potentially seismic. … @ben@werd.social · Ben Werdmuller
- For the #law nerds: here is the judgment of the #CJEU from today on Facebook/Meta, the #GDPR, competition authorities and data protection authorities. This judgment goes back to the higher court in Düsseldorf for a final decision in their case https://curia.europa.eu/... @jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net
- CJEU declares Meta/Facebook's GDPR approach largely illegal noyb.eu
- A national competition authority can find, in the context of the examination of an abuse of a dominant position, that the GDPR has been infringed EU Court of Justice
- German antitrust watchdog can add privacy breaches to Meta probe, EU court says Reuters · Foo Yun Chee
- EU's top court rules against Meta in key data privacy case SiliconANGLE · Maria Deutscher
- Facebook faces legal setback in EU court decision on data privacy and ads Associated Press
- Meta's data practices take a hit in major EU court ruling Silicon Republic · Leigh Mc Gowran
- Tech companies could face stricter scrutiny in EU after Facebook antitrust court loss WRAL TechWire
- Meta's Facebook Faces Fresh Threat to Sending Personalized Ads in EU Wall Street Journal
- EU Court Deals Blow to Meta in German Data Case SecurityWeek
- Meta, Facebook face massive legal setback at top EU court over user privacy and ads Firstpost · Mehul Reuben Das
- Microsoft set to face EU antitrust probe over Teams bundle: Report Computerworld · Charlotte Trueman
- JUDGMENT OF THE COURT — This request for a preliminary ruling concerns the interpretation of Article 4 … InfoCuria
- Meta Loses Appeal on How It Harvests Data in Germany New York Times · Adam Satariano
- Facebook suffers fresh setback after EU ruling on use of personal data Financial Times · Javier Espinoza
- Meta in hot water again: EU ruling shakes company Cryptopolitan · Jai Hamid
- EU judgment sinks Meta's argument for targeted ads ComputerWeekly.com · Alex Scroxton
- EU antitrust team closer to full-blown Microsoft probe, say sources The Register · Paul Kunert
- Meta loses as top EU court backs antitrust regulators over privacy breach checks RTÉ
- Facebook parent Meta loses privacy breach checks case Business Post
- EU watchdog to investigate Microsoft in a breach of competition rules complaint TechCircle · Shraddha Goled
- CJEU declares Meta/Facebook's GDPR approach largely illegal — “Instead of having a ‘yes/no’ option for personalized ads, they [Meta] just moved the consent clause in the terms and conditions. This is not just unfair but clearly illegal. We are not aware of any other company that has tried to ignore the GDPR in such an arrogant way.” … @iuculano@masto.ai
- https://noyb.eu/... but hey let's just wait and see what Facebook will do once they plug Insta into the fediverse, I'm sure they'll be good *this* time around @outie@slime.global
- CJEU declares Meta's GDPR approach illegal Hacker News
Discussion
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@tjmcintyre@mastodon.social
TJ McIntyre
on mastodon
Everyone's talking about today's huge CJEU judgment and what it means for Meta. — But there are massive implications for digital evidence in criminal matters also. — Paras.124-139 rule out any argument that platforms may retain data for future sharing with police in criminal …
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@glynmoody@mastodon.social
Glyn Moody
on mastodon
CJEU declares Meta/Facebook's GDPR approach largely illegal — CJEU declares Meta/Facebook's GDPR approach largely illegal - CJEU declares Meta/Facebook's GDPR approach largely illegal — and meta wants us to trust it with Threads...?
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@gulovsen@mastodon.social
Grant Gulovsen
on mastodon
Wow. So Facebook/Meta tried to argue that it was legally obligated to serve ads to its users (presumably based on language they added to their terms of service) and this allowed them to bypass any consent requirement for tracking and online advertisement... And the Court of Jus…
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@eucourtpress
@eucourtpress
on x
ECJ: A national #competition authority examining an abuse of a dominant position may also find that the #GDPR has been infringed @meta👉https://curia.europa.eu/ ...
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@maxschrems
Max Schrems
on x
Today the #CJEU has largely declared Meta's approach to #GDPR “compliance” illegal. Meta is basically reduced to core services and consent for anything that goes beyond that. VERY good result as the CJEU (as before) simply applied the letter of the law. https://noyb.eu/...
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@gabrielazanfir
Dr. Gabriela Zanfir-Fortuna
on x
Momentous CJEU judgment today, creating new jurisprudence at the intersection of antitrust & data protection law by deciding that an abuse of dominant position in digital markets can be found by an antitrust authority due to a breach of the #GDPR https://curia.europa.eu/... 1/
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@heiko_duenkel
@heiko_duenkel
on x
👇👇👇That is also our preliminary interpretation of today's ruling. (@vzbv is third party to the case.) Great success for @Kartellamt and consumers. https://twitter.com/...
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@jason_kint
Jason Kint
on x
News report. I'd say sort of to this. Def restricts Facebook's ability to use any data its collected in one app or from a 3rd party context/provider. Much of that has been used to train FB ad targeting models so that will bring up another unwind question. https://www.wsj.com/...
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@f_kaltheuner
Frederike Kaltheuner
on x
An incredibly important ruling with far-reaching consequences for how platforms and social media companies can operate. This ruling challenges the business model - an important step towards protecting people's rights. @hrw https://noyb.eu/...
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@amnestytech
@amnestytech
on x
🚨🚨We welcome Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruling on how @Meta's surveillance business model violates EU law. The ruling is a blow to the surveillance advertising business model which underpins Meta, fundamentally undermining rights https://techcrunch.com/...
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@mbarczentewicz
@mbarczentewicz
on x
I see a lot of breathless misleading reporting about CJEU's Meta judgment based on the press release. Especially this sentence, where the nuance is that it refers to off-platform data ("data at issue"). The question of first-party data is not that clear [image]
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@joewestby
Joe Westby
on x
Happy “independence-from-Meta's-surveillance- capitalism-day”! (h/t @riptari) As major EU court CJEU ruling confirms that Meta's invasive data harvesting for ad profit without people's consent is *not* legal. https://techcrunch.com/...
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@maxschrems
Max Schrems
on x
This is “#GDPR meltdown day” for @Meta - CJEU basically closes all “loopholes” their lawyers have argued for the last five years. We have put together a (very) first statement here: https://noyb.eu/... https://twitter.com/...
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@privacymatters
@privacymatters
on x
@VeraJourova ... 1/ Not really. Take the case of @meta for example. Today the @EUCourtPress ruled in Case C-252/21 https://curia.europa.eu/... I'm in the UK. Consider that ruling then consider Meta's response to me wrt to the same issues in the ruling I would suggest that Meta's …
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@andrejsavin
Andrej Savin
on x
#CJEU on Meta's data collection: “personalised advertising by which [...] Facebook finances its activity, cannot justify, as a legitimate interest [...], the processing of the data [...] in the absence of the data subject's consent “https://curia.europa.eu/...
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@profschrepel
Thibault Schrepel
on x
This ( https://curia.europa.eu/... / https://curia.europa.eu/...) is nonsense to me, but not surprising: Continental Can (1973) broke the causal link between dominance and abuse ( https://www.networklawreview.org/ ...). We logically end up with this poor decision. Next step: infr…
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@montezumachavez
Luis Montezuma
on x
Judgment of the Court in Meta Platforms and Others (General terms of use of a social network) A national competition authority can find, in the context of the examination of an abuse of a dominant position, that the GDPR has been infringed. See https://curia.europa.eu/... [image]
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@mbarczentewicz
@mbarczentewicz
on x
1/ What must you know about today's potentially momentous decision from the EU's highest court (CJEU) in Meta's case? (Case C-252/21) TLDR: personalized advertising under the GDPR may get even more tricky, but this is not the end.
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@krisshrishak
Kris Shrishak
on x
Big news from CJEU with three key components: 1. Competition authorities can assess #GDPR compliance when investigating abuse of dominant position. 2. Legitimate interest, in the absence of consent, may not be a sufficient legal basis for personalised ads. [image]
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@gabrielazanfir
Dr. Gabriela Zanfir-Fortuna
on x
This is a case concerning a decision by the Federal German Antitrust regulator against Meta. The case refers to the combined processing of on-platform and off-platform data to create profiles relied on for targeted advertising without valid GDPR consent. 2/
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@krisshrishak
Kris Shrishak
on x
3. Imbalance between operators in dominant position and data subjects can can affect whether consent is freely given. The dominant player needs to prove that data subjects freely gave consent. https://curia.europa.eu/... [image]
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@martacantero
Marta Cantero
on x
Highly relevant @EUCourtPress ruling on GDPR (the very same day we are expecting amendment for improving enforcement) Main points: ‧NCAs can assess but not enforce GDPR ‧Personalised advertising cannot justify as legitimate interest ‧Dominant position affects consent validity htt…
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@privacymatters
@privacymatters
on x
🍿 This is big. A number of Competition Authorities are seriously tackling the abuse of privacy esp wrt to mobile .. via examining architectures of choice, browser and search engine defaults, deceptive design etc 💪 https://twitter.com/...