EU Court: Ireland Can Not Tackle Facebook
National regulators in the EU can take action against companies that violate the European privacy regulation, even if the target company is not located in that country.
That is what the European Court of Justice ruled in a case brought against Facebook by the Belgian Data Protection Authority.
The ruling is a setback for Facebook. The European headquarters of the American tech giant is in Ireland. Belgium wants the social network to stop tracking browsing history using cookies from non-users. But according to Facebook, that is a matter for the Irish authorities.
The European court now rules that the rules leave room for national supervisors to intervene and thus allows the Belgian Data Protection Authority to take action against Facebook.
