German antitrust authorities restricted Facebook's ability to assign data from third-party apps to users' profiles Thursday, a move the company disagreed with and said it intends to appeal.

Germany's Federal Cartel Office, the Bundeskartellamt, said Facebook can continue to collect data from apps it owns, including WhatsApp and Instagram, but can't assign data from the apps to users' Facebook profiles without voluntary consent. Facebook will no longer be able to collect German users' data from third-party websites without voluntary consent.

“Voluntary consent means that the use of Facebook's services must not be subject to the users' consent to their data being collected and combined in this way,” Bundeskartellamt president Andreas Mundt said in a press release. “If users do not consent, Facebook may not exclude them from its services and must refrain from collecting and merging data from different sources.”