Vienna Judge delivers "non-judgment" in Facebook case

A judge of the Vienna Regional Court delivered a written judgment (PDF, German) in a long-lasting civil case on Facebook yesterday night. Despite summarizing detailed facts about Facebook's illegal data use, no real analysis or decision on the legal arguments was undertaken. Within the 39 page "judgment" there are only 19 short sentences on Data Protection Law. The judge apparently wanted to leave these issues to the Superior Courts. Schrems: "I am glad that after 6 years we are finally done with this particular judge and can move on to courts that are willing to clarify these important legal issues." Data protection? This is something for the superior courts! The GDPR is not the easiest read. That's probably also what the judge at the Regional Court for Civil Matters ("Landesgericht für Zivilrechtssachen") in Vienna thought to herself. Already during the oral hearing the judge announced that she wants to concentrate her work on the facts of the case, because the legal assessment, whet