San Francisco (AFP)
Facebook is discussing some of the European Commission's requests as irrelevant and relating to the privacy of its employees, the American group, which is under investigation from Brussels, said on Monday for possible anti-competitive practices.
The social media giant claims to cooperate with the authorities, but "the exceptionally broad nature of the Commission's requests means that we should provide them with documents primarily unrelated to their investigation," said Tim Lamb, competition lawyer at Facebook.
He notably mentions requests for "highly sensitive personal information such as medical or financial information, and private information on the families of employees."
“We believe that such requests should be examined by European courts,” he concludes.
According to a Financial Times article on Monday, Facebook has launched a lawsuit against the European Union (EU), which the company accuses of invading the privacy of its employees.
Facebook believes that these documents can only be shared if certain rules are respected, but ensures that the Commission has rejected its offers so far.
The EU is investigating possible practices aimed at preventing any competition from companies like Facebook or Apple.
The European Commission is stepping up its offensives against dominant digital platforms, in a context of deadlock in international negotiations on their taxation.
Facebook says it has already sent 315,000 documents related to the antitrust investigation this year, or 1.7 million pages.
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