Meta, the mother of Facebook and Instagram, was fined $414 million by European Union regulators on Wednesday for violating privacy laws that would potentially jeopardize the social media company’s lucrative digital promoting strategy.
The Irish Data Protection Commission, the major regulator for Meta in Europe, has reported to the tech giant a violation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). A sweeping 2018 law was intended to limit the power of Meta and other tech giants to gather and use users’ personal information without their consent.
EU regulators said Meta violated GDPR law by requiring Facebook and Instagram users to enter right into a “contract” by accepting the terms of service to access the app – and using that consent to process their personal data for targeted promoting. The penalties stemmed from individual complaints addressed to every of the platforms.
Meta argued that the language of the contract provided a legal justification for its data practices in Europe. However the DPC ruled that Meta users got “insufficient clarity as to what processing operations were carried out on their personal data”.
In keeping with the DPC, regulators instructed Meta to bring its data practices in the country into compliance inside three months. The ruling could have serious ramifications for Meta operations if users are eventually capable of “opt out” of certain ads.
Europe is a key market for Meta, which has long relied on ad revenue to spice up its profits. In 2021 alone, the corporate earned $118 billion in ad revenue.
In a lengthy statement, Meta strongly backed down from the choice and signaled it might appeal, kicking off an expected lengthy legal battle with European regulators.
“The talk over the legal bases has been going on for a while, with firms facing regulatory uncertainty in this area,” Meta said in an announcement. “We strongly imagine that our approach is GDPR compliant, subsequently we’re upset with these decisions and intend to appeal each the content of the rulings and the penalties.”
Meta argued that regulators had failed to offer “clarity” on what constituted an appropriate legal basis for data processing in Europe.
The corporate added that it might be “very remarkable if a social media service wasn’t tailored to the person user.”
“Facebook and Instagram are inherently personalized, and we imagine that providing each user with their very own unique experience – including the ads they see – is a vital and essential a part of this service,” the corporate added.
The recent actions by Irish regulators are a part of an ongoing crackdown on Meta’s activities in Europe. The DPC is conducting 11 other open investigations into Meta’s activities in Europe and has already imposed fines such as greater than $1.37 billion.
Meta has sharply criticized the regulatory motion – at one point it threatened to shut down Facebook and Instagram operations entirely in Europe amid a dispute over data transfer rules.
The legal battle is one other headache for Meta, which has already warned of a decline in ad revenue after Apple made changes to its data privacy policies.
Meta shares have fallen 62% in the past 12 months because the Zuckerberg-led company makes a costly, cumbersome transition to Metaverse technology. The shares were up nearly $3 to $127 as of midday Wednesday.
With postal wires