Germany’s Federal Cartel Office is blocking Facebook from pooling data collected from its social platforms and third-party websites without user consent. Facebook will be required to get users’ permission before merging data from other sites. For its part, Facebook said it needed to collect all of user data to protect against terrorism and child abuse. (Financial Times)

Talking point: The move is a hit to Facebook’s core advertising business model and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s plans to merge Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp, as my colleague Murad pointed out when rumours of a German data order were first reported. It could also serve as a precedent for countries like Canada, whose ethics committee has called for allowing the Competition Bureau to look into mega-deals that take data-driven mergers into account. This development is the latest crackdown on the company’s efforts to create more avenues for collecting and monetizing data; last week, Apple banned the Facebook Research App from its App Store for collecting and analyzing all of a user’s phone and web activity.