ARTICLE · 14 MARCH 2018

German Court Issues Important Judgment On Consent And Transparency In Facebook Case

Reed Smith (Worldwide)

The Regional Court of Berlin held in a judgment of 16 January 2018 that Facebook's default privacy settings and parts of their terms and conditions were invalid.

GermanyPrivacy

Sven Schonhofen LL.M.

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The Regional Court of Berlin held in a judgment of 16 January 2018 (docket no. 16 O 341/15, German language version of the judgment available here) that Facebook's default privacy settings and parts of their terms and conditions were invalid. This judgment provides important guidance on consent and transparency.

Background

The Federation of German Consumer Organizations (Federation) sued Facebook and requested cease and desist regarding some of its default settings and terms and conditions.

The Federation argued that Facebook's default settings violated the requirement of explicit consent. For example, the default settings included a location service in Facebook's mobile app revealing the location of the person that the user is chatting to. In addition, boxes were pre-activated allowing search engines to link to the user's timeline.

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German Court Issues Important Judgment On Consent And Transparency In Facebook Case

Background

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