Meta hit with US$413 million fine over EU privacy breach
Meta fined
Regulators in the 27-nation bloc of the European Union fined Facebook parent firm Meta hundreds of millions of euros for privacy breaches on Wednesday and banned the company from persuading users to accept tailored advertisements based on their online behaviour.
In two incidents that might upend Meta's business model of targeting people with adverts based on what they do online, Ireland's Data Protection Commission levied two fines totalling 390 million euros ($414 million). The business claims to be appealing.
The European Union has some of the strongest privacy laws in the world, which have put pressure on Meta and other big tech corporations. Four further penalties totaling more than 900 million euros have already been levied against Meta by Irish regulators for data privacy violations since 2021, and several other lawsuits against other Silicon Valley businesses are still pending.
The EU antitrust regulators in Brussels who are stretching their muscles against digital companies are another regulatory worry for Meta: They charged the business with manipulating the classified ad market last month.
This month's end is when the third case regarding Meta's WhatsApp messaging service is anticipated to be resolved.
The Irish watchdog, which serves as Meta's lead European data privacy regulator due to the fact that its regional headquarters is in Dublin, fined the company 210 million euros for violating Facebook's EU data privacy rules and an additional 180 million euros for violating Instagram's EU data privacy rules.
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The General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, the privacy regulations adopted by the 27-nation bloc in May 2018, is what led to the judgement.
Prior to this, Meta relied on users' informed consent to handle their personal data in order to deliver tailored or behavioural adverts to them that are based on their internet searches, the websites they visit, or the videos they watch.
(With inputs from agencies)
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