Abstract

The Bundeskartellamt is about to conclude an investigation initiated, in early 2016, against Facebook: the hypothetical offence is an abuse of dominant position consisting in the imposition of general contractual conditions in contrast to the discipline on the protection of personal data. Beyond the problematic nexus «privacy-antitrust», the traditionally neglected clause of art. 102 Tfeu is thus revisited in an unusual perspective, not only because it deals with unfair contract provisions (instead of price), but it also re-proposes, via a trajectory that goes through abuse of economic dependence and the content control of contractual terms (with its obvious implications with the consumer law), an old-fashioned interpretation of the phenomenon of adhesion contracts.