Deutsche Bank: Facebook’s biggest GDPR risk is a flood of lawsuits

GDPR, a new set of European guidelines meant to give citizens more control over their online data, goes into effect on May 25. That’s why you keep getting emails from every technology company you use, informing you that their privacy policies have been updated. But even with these changes, many organizations are going to be impacted–specifically the ones that deal with a lot of user data.

Case in point is Facebook, the ubiquitous social network that has so much data about us it’s sometimes inconceivable to comprehend. The company has implemented changes to make its data-hoovering practices opt-in by default, at least for its European users. There are still, however, many grey areas relating to how compliant Facebook’s GDPR changes are.

Deutsche Bank, in a new note, raises this concern. Though its analysts say they’re still bullish on the company’s stock, they see a foggy legal future. According to the note, the analysts predict a “flood of lawsuits surrounding GDPR.”

The analysts go on: “While we do not opine on the likelihood of these lawsuits being successful, we believe the sheer volume of lawsuits could be cause for concern, and if nothing else, a distraction for FB and other tech companies alike (e.g. Google).”

In short, whether or not these legal battles prove to have merit, they could still end up impacting Facebook’s bottom line.