Advocate General Bobek: The Operator Of a Website Embedding a Third Party Plugin Such as the Facebook Like Button, Which Causes the Collection and Transmission of The Users Personal Data, is Jointly Responsible for That Stage of the Data Processing

Abstract

“Fashion ID is a German online retailer which sells fashion items. It embedded a plugin on its website: Facebook’s ‘Like’ button. As a result, when a user lands on Fashion ID’s website, information about that user’s IP address and browser string is transferred to Facebook. That transfer occurs automatically when Fashion ID’s website has loaded, irrespective of whether the user has clicked on the Like button and whether or not he has a Facebook account. Verbraucherzentrale NRW, a German association defending the interests of consumers, brought legal proceedings for an injunction against Fashion ID on the ground that the use of the Facebook Like button results in a breach of data protection legislation.