Facebook and Instagram: Soon the end in Europe or simply Zuckerberg panic?

news business Facebook and Instagram: Soon the end in Europe or simply Zuckerberg panic?

RGPD and Privacy Shield

Will Europeans have to do without Facebook and Instagram in the near future? According to information from the American and British media, this question arises. Why ? For a question of data transfer. The metagroup (new name chosen for his empire by Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook) recently submitted a report to the Securities and Exchange Commission

. The latter is the American equivalent of the Financial Markets Authority: it oversees the protection of savers and the proper functioning of markets in financial instruments. In this report Meta would indicate that he might not be able to”to offer its main services and products” in Europe, including Facebook and Instagram.

Why ? For a question of the data business and in particular the Privacy Shield Where Privacy Shield. Negotiated between 2015 and 2016, this “shield” was a set of provisions that facilitate the transfer of personal information between the United States and Europe. Except that in June 2020, this deal was declared invalid by the Court of Justice of the European Union, which the United States then stated are better able to ensure EU-equivalent protection of personal data

and that this Agreement violates the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). The repeal of Privacy Shield therefore no longer allows the Pentagon to readily transfer this data out of the European Union.

Simple pressure or panic attack?

And inevitably, such a blow must have damaged Mark Zuckerberg and his Meta : Facebook and Instagram have a business model that relies on the personal information they collect through these social networks. It then sells them to advertisers whose advert ising for the latter is more effective in selling their product. But then proposing the closure of Facebook and Instagram in exchange for a favorable data transfer environment, okay, but what does that change? In the Medienstadt AM, the group expresses itself:

A lack of secure and legal international data transfers would hurt the economy and hamper the growth of data-driven businesses in the EU, just as we are trying to emerge from the Covid-19 crisis

An impact that, according to the group, small or large companies moving through the cloud and using personal data could feel. If this ultimatum-like proposal can be unsettling, it also looks like a panic attack: In 6 months, Facebook stock has fallen 34%. A decrease related to the decrease in the number of users of the platform with 1 million fewer users. It therefore seems crazy to withdraw from the European market: in the last financial report published by Meta, the old continent represented 25% of the group’s turnover.

Source : cityAM