LONDON — European Union regulators on Wednesday hit Facebook momsanddad Meta with hundreds of millions in fines for personalprivacy offenses and prohibited the business from requiring users in the 27-nation bloc to concur to individualized advertisements based on their online activity.
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission enforced 2 fines amountingto 390 million euros ($414 million) in its choice in 2 cases that might shake up Meta’s service design of targeting users with advertisements based on what they do online. The business states it will appeal.
A choice in a 3rd case including Meta’s WhatsApp messaging service is anticipated lateron this month.
Meta and other Big Tech business have come under pressure from the European Union’s personalprivacy guidelines, which are some of the world’s strictest. Irish regulators have currently slapped Meta with 4 other fines for information personalprivacy violations giventhat 2021 that overall more than 900 million euros and have a multitude of other open cases versus a number of Silicon Valley business.
Meta likewise dealswith regulative headaches from EU antitrust authorities in Brussels bending their muscles versus tech giants: They implicated the business last month of misshaping competitors in categorized advertisements.
The Irish guarddog — Meta’s lead European information personalprivacy regulator since its local headoffice is in Dublin — fined the business 210 million euros for infractions of EU information personalprivacy guidelines including Facebook and an extra 180 million euros