German Competition Watchdog Wants 'big Data' Hoards Considered In Merger Probes: Paper

[Ron Burgundy]

The vast troves of consumer data held by big Internet companies should be scrutinized in merger probes because they have a big impact on competition, the president of the German antitrust watchdog told a newspaper. Collections of "big data" - covering billions of internet searches, messages and other online interactions - hand Internet companies huge power they can exercise in marketing and commerce and which potentially makes it difficult for smaller businesses to compete in those areas. Facebook's $19 billion acquisition of Whatsapp in 2014 almost escaped scrutiny from cartel authorities as the messaging service hardly had any revenues at the time, Mundt said, adding that it was apparently still of great strategic importance to Facebook.

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