In 2009 the European Commission fined Intel, ruling that the computer components manufacturer had violated the rules of fair competition in the European market. In particular, the regulator said that from 2002 to 2005 the corporation gave a discount to players on the ready-made computer market and made them promise that 95% of their products would be made up of Intel components. Thus, the European Commission found, the U.S. manufacturer was limiting the use of competitor processors – Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

In 2012 Intel tried to challenge the European Commission’s decision, but then the European authorities did not find the arguments of the corporation convincing. During the current appeal, the company insisted on reconsideration of the decision to pay the fine. Intel, in particular, argued that the regulator had not analyzed “all the circumstances of the case”, which is why it made an “unfair and erroneous” ruling. The European Court agreed with the arguments of the applicant and sent the case for review to a lower court.

The decision could affect other antitrust disputes between the European Union and large companies. For example, in June Google was fined $2.42 billion for violating antitrust laws (see “European Commission Fines Google €2.4 Billion”). If the court reviews the case in favor of Intel, it could become a unique precedent, since the European Commission has not lost major antitrust cases for decades.

Assimakis Komninos of the law firm White & Case takes a similar view. “This is certainly a defeat for the European Commission and indicates some weakening of the dominance of case law,” he said, adding that any corporations that are in dispute with the European Commission can see this as a “positive sign.”

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Facebook, as it was found out by the agency, collects data about a person: his ideology, gender, religious beliefs and personal preferences in food and clothing. At the same time, the social network does not inform users that it is processing information about them and does not ask permission. It can be used in different ways. Most often it is sold to advertising agencies to let them know whom to offer what products to.

A Facebook user with average knowledge of new technology would not know about the data collection and its subsequent use and storage, and unregistered users are not even aware that Facebook is collecting data.

Such violations, according to the agency, are very serious, so the company was fined €1.2 million.

The fact that social networks collect data about their users became known last year. Germany has already banned Facebook from collecting data from users of the messenger WhatsApp, when it was found that the social network had collected information about 35 million users.

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