European Antitrust Chief Takes Swipe at Privacy Issue

Margrethe Vestager, the European Union’s antitrust chief, warned on Sunday that the collection of a vast amount of users’ data by a small number of tech companies like Google and Facebook could be in violation of the region’s tough competition rules.Ms. Vestager’s comments are the latest in a growing chorus of European criticism about the privacy practices of American tech giants, many of which rely on crunching data based on people’s social media posts, online search queries and e-commerce purchases to fuel their digital advertising businesses.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/18/technology/european-antitrust-chief-takes-swipe-at-privacy-issue.htmlAlso see:EU competition chief to eye ‘big data’ concerns in merger probes
The European Union plans to take a harder look at whether the collection of vast troves of consumer data by big Internet companies violates competition rules, competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said on Sunday.”If just a few companies control the data you need to satisfy customers and cut costs, then you can give them the power to just drive rivals out of the market,” Vestager told a conference of top European and U.S. entrepreneurs and investors.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-europe-data-competition-idUKKCN0UV0ZG