In European law it doesn't matter. You try and bypass laws and the courts have none of it. It's very "fuck around find out". They already decided against them for antitrust for doing exactly that.

That was the ruling [PDF] from the European Union's highest court, the Court of Justice, when it upheld a decision by German antitrust regulators that Meta had abused its dominance in social media by milking users for information and swirling it together to serve up ads to users.

If you bypass shit in the EU they slap you with something else and make an example of you.

[–] mob@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I mean it's fuck Meta... But I'd be curious.

If you signed up for Valve in the EU for like Left 4 Dead or Half Life or something, it would be against the law for them to share that account with Steam?

Actually, the more I think about it. Steam would likely be really close to illegal in general, right? Feel like a lot of companies sharing account info

[–] Lenins2ndCat@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If you signed up for Valve in the EU for like Left 4 Dead or Half Life or something, it would be against the law for them to share that account with Steam?

Account linking is usually done through a system that you opt into, agreeing to have that link.

This is entirely different, it's just "fuck it we've got all this data, we'll share it across and use it regardless of consent or not".

While for other things it's a completely external registration, for example I have a Steam account but also have to make a completely separate Capcom account for Street Fighter, then link the two together.

The key component is that the end user consents before any data is shared, whereas Meta's approach is just to do it regardless of consent, treating your private information as something you don't have a right to control.