The highest court in Germany has held a characteristic that motivates Facebook users to promote the social networking network to their contacts unlawful, supporting the opinions of two lower courts.
The Facebook attribute encourages users to allow it permission -mail addresses of contacts or buddies in the user’s address book, which then enables the social network -Facebook users to join the service.
The court reasoned this was a deceptive marketing practice, supporting conclusions by two lower courts in 2012 and 2014 in Berlin, which had found that German laws had been broken by Facebook on unfair trade practices and data protection.
The federal court also said members had not been sufficiently educated by Facebook about the way that it was using their contacts’ information.
“What the ruling means just for the present Friends Finder, we now need to learn,” said Klaus Mueller, head of the VZBV.
“In addition to Facebook, other services use this type of marketing to entice new users. They must now likely reconsider,” Mueller added.