Die Drittwirkung der Grundrechte und -freiheiten gegenüber Privaten

This work illustrates the importance of social networks for fundamental communication rights, as well as the relevance and extent of the use of personal data in our digital society. In the process, highly topical data protection and antitrust issues relating to the possibilities of regulating the social network Facebook are put into a comprehensive, fundamental rights context. Social networks tend to concentrate market power through direct and indirect network effects. Users' personal data can be used in a variety of ways and across different markets. This illustrates that data power can be a factor for market power. The scope of users' consent to data processing is critically analysed with regard to the existing imbalance between the social network and its users, the resulting dependency relationship, and the associated de facto constraints.