Facebook takes EU antitrust regulators to court

US technology giant Facebook is suing EU regulators after a spat between the two parties erupted over access to company documents as part of an ongoing antitrust probe.

EU competition enforcers have been investigating Facebook for practices related to the use of data in apps since last year, as well as reviewing how the company operates its online marketplace.

As part of the EU’s ongoing investigations it has transpired that Facebook is appealing the Commission’s right to access thousands of “irrelevant” documents that contain “highly personal information”, the company has confirmed.

A source familiar with the matter informed Euractiv that the Commission had demanded access to Facebook documents with over 2,500 search strings, including very broad keyword criteria.

“With such criteria, this would yield hundreds of thousands of documents,” the source said. “Many of which would highlight personal and completely irrelevant personal information.”

Moreover, since the launch of the investigations last year, Facebook has provided over 300,000 documents to the Commission, but the company says that the thousands more requested by the EU executive could compromise sensitive personal information, which would not be conducive to the ongoing probe.

Source: Euractiv