EU Regulator Fines Meta Over $400 Million For Forceful Acceptance Of Target Ads

There is another striking lawsuit heading Meta’s way and this time around, it’s straight from a top EU regulator.

On Wednesday, the company was slapped with a mega fine that totaled nearly $400 million. The privacy regulator from Ireland concluded how the firm’s advertising and data controlling practices breached EU-based privacy law.

The Irish Data Protection Commission mentioned how Meta would be ordered to fulfill two major fines over violation of their policies linked to data protection regulation. The same law was set out for Instagram. As a whole, it’s a combined penalty of nearly $414 million.

This major fine is the conclusion of two major investigations by Meta that’s by a top Ireland-based regulator. It was seen getting criticized thanks to major delays in the entire process. Moreover, we saw the likes of DPC starting an investigation for the firm when the GDPR came into being.

For a while now, we’re watching the GDPR set out huge requirements on companies in regard to the processing of information. So many companies run rules that risk penalties that go as high as 4% in terms of annual revenues. As per the ruling seen on Wednesday, Meta would be required to alter its operations linked to data processing. The leading watchdog has its headquarters in Ireland and there are quite a few other tech giants being ruled by them.

Meta announced on Wednesday how it was planning to appeal this ruling. It also reiterated how such a decision doesn’t equal a ban linked to personalized ads and firms can carry on using the company’s platforms to provide ads to other target users.

Meanwhile, one spokesperson for the firm announced how personalized ads can’t be offered by the company across the European continent unless every user’s agreement is not correct. Clearly, there is a huge lack of clarity on the matter and the debate continues among regulators as we speak.

The final decision by the DPC is one that Meta is clearly not happy with and this debate is among the regulators as well as the policymakers which continues to go on with time, as revealed by Meta’s spokesperson.

Let’s not forget how Meta has suffered a huge blow in the past related to making use of a user’s consent to process data for the likes of their own ads. But when we saw the likes of GDPR enter the picture, the firm ended up altering its terms of service for both Facebook as well as Instagram. They switched legal basis that processes data and it’s called contractual necessity.

During that same year, we witnessed another complaint get lodged and it forced users to take on board the likes of data processing for the sake of ad targeting and in exchange, people could use its platforms.

Meta would need to create a version of the apps that don’t make use of personal data, thanks to advertising taking place within a three-month timespan.


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