Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Meta fined for illegally posting user data for market profit. on Thursday, Reuters It was reported that a Madrid court ordered the company to pay €477 million ($552) in fines to 87 Spanish properties. Good news from a company that is changing its legal grounds for harvesting personal data after the new rules came into force.
The court found that the practices of collecting meta data violated the EU’s general data protection law (GDPR) – and, additionally, the Spanish antitrust law. After the GDPR went into effect in 2018, the company changed its legal grounds for collecting data on Facebook and Instagram from user consent to “necessity for the performance of a contract.”
Regulators later ruled in favor of that provision, and the meta returned to user consent as its basis in 2023. But the digital media stores that are integrated are harmed, which led to the present day. The court ruled that meta gained a “significant competitive advantage” by processing user data in that way. The court calculated the fine as a percentage of the company’s revenue over the five years it used the illegal competitor.
“The illegal treatment of this large company of personal data means that Meta had an advantage that the Spanish online media cannot match,” the Madrid court said in a statement (via A decorative machine). “Meta’s actions hurt the online advertising revenue of Spanish Digital media outlets.”
The Meta discussed the fine and said it would be attractive. “This is a baseless claim with no evidence of injury and is a deliberate disregard for how the online advertising industry operates,” the company said in a statement. Reuters. “Meta complies with all applicable laws and provides clear decisions, transparent information and users given various tools to control their experience with our services.”
