Meta fined $414M by EU for targeted advertising

The authority responsible for protecting EU citizens' data, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), found the social media giant in violation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a privacy law enacted in 2018 in Article 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the union.

EU regulators accused Meta of breaching the GDPR law by using users' personal data for targeted advertising, reported the New York Post. Meta argued that when users agree to their platforms' terms of service "contracts," they're legally able to collect their data. However, DPC found that users of Instagram and Facebook got "insufficient clarity as to what processing operations were being carried out on their personal data."

The DPC has demanded that the tech giant reins in its data collection practices to be compliant with the GDPR policy within a three-month period.

Meta, co-founded by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, released a statement arguing back against the claims by the EU.

"The debate around legal bases has been ongoing for some time and businesses have faced a lack of regulatory certainty in this area. We strongly believe our approach respects GDPR, and we're therefore disappointed by these decisions and intend to appeal both the substance of the rulings and the fines."

The Facebook parent company also claimed that the European regulators didn't provide enough "clarity" on how to stay within compliance, and added that it would be "highly unusual for a social media service not to be tailored to the individual user."

"Facebook and Instagram are inherently personalized, and we believe that providing each user with their own unique experience – including the ads they see – is a necessary and essential part of that service," the company argued.

According to the New York Times, Meta earned $118 billion in ad revenue in 2021 alone.

The Irish commission has 11 other open inquiries into Meta's operations within the EU, imposing other fines adding up to over $1.37 billion.

The newest slate of fines come less than two months after Zuckerberg apologized for sweeping layoffs at this company, after he slashed 13 percent of the workforce, or 11,000 people.