EU: User data central to possible LinkedIn acquisition investigation

European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, says that user data will be central to a possible investigation into the acquisition of LinkedIn by Microsoft. The question is whether this data forms an obstacle for other parties to enter the market.

Another factor that takes into account is the question of how long the acquired data can be kept, Vestager stated in an interview on Friday. She added that such an analysis has also taken place in the past, Bloomberg reported. This would also have played a role in the past in the takeover of WhatsApp by Facebook, although its predecessor did not object to that transaction.

An analyst tells Bloomberg that the WhatsApp takeover affected 350 million European users, while LinkedIn affects about 100 million Europeans. Therefore, the LinkedIn acquisition should in principle require less supervision. However, Vestager had warned in January that the fact that no objections to a takeover have been identified so far does not mean it will never happen, Bloomberg said.

At the time, she also said that the amount of personal data a company possesses can be taken into account in decisions about competition issues, for example when it comes to a dominant market position. Microsoft announced this week that it was acquiring LinkedIn for $26.2 billion. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals in the EU, US, Canada and Brazil. On Friday, it turned out that Salesforce also made an offer on LinkedIn.