Facebook also targeted in Italy. The Antitrust has opened an investigation into the Menlo Park giant after the Cambridge Analytica scandal over the violation of privacy and the misuse of the data of 87 million users worldwide.
The case also involves Italy, given that according to the information provided by the founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, the information would have been shared improperly in our country information on 214 thousand users. The contagion would have been triggered by 57 accounts that downloaded and installed the famous app designed by professor Kogan and then ended up in the hands of Cambridge Analytica, then allowing it to spread.
By virtue of this information, the Competition and Market Authority announced the opening of an investigation on Facebook "for misleading information on the collection and use of data".
According to what was stated by the number one of the Authority, John Pitruzzella, “the Antitrust has today opened a proceeding for unfair commercial practices, which concerns the misleading message that is given to the consumer. When we sign up for Facebook on the home page we find a message that says the service is free and always will be. But the consumer is not enabled to know that on the contrary he is giving away data, for which there will be a commercial use, as recent events also demonstrate".
“These are – continued the president – new problems that involve various profiles: there is a profile of privacy protection, for which the sector regulator, the national and European privacy authority, is intervening; there is a profile of new rules, adequate rules are needed for the times in which the Communications Authority is thinking, then there is a profile of consumer protection, we have been called to intervene by consumer protection associations, and we believe messages must be clear, accurate, not misleading, about what platforms like Facebook do with our digital identity."
In short, the Antitrust wants to understand if, at the time of registration, users are correctly provided with the information necessary to understand that the data will be transferred to third parties and in what way.
We also recall that Mark Zuckerberg will appear on Monday 9 April before the Energy and Trade Commission to clarify what was the role of the social network in the affair.
