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Meta fined $275 million for violating EU data privacy law

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The Irish watchdog has fined Meta $275 million for a major data leak exposed last year, meaning the Facebook parent has paid out more than $900 million in fines since last year.

The tech giant has been hit with another massive fine for publishing the personal information of over 500 million Facebook users online.

The fine issued by Ireland's Data Protection Commission takes the total amount charged to Meta since last year to more than $900 million.

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In September, the same authority penalized the firm $400 million for mishandling children's data.

In October last year, Irish regulators also fined Meta, then known as Facebook, around $235 million for infractions relating to its messaging service WhatsApp.

The piling fines will be hailed by privacy advocates who want European Union officials to implement the General Data Protection Regulation more vigorously.

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When it went into force in 2018, the law was welcomed as a watershed event in the regulation of tech companies.

However, authorities have been reprimanded for not enforcing the rules strictly enough.

Since firms like Meta, Google, and Twitter have their EU headquarters in Ireland, the nation polices tech companies' compliance with the 2018 law.

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TikTok, which has established an EU base in Ireland, is the focus of another probe in that country.

The penalty was levied on Monday, November 28th, as a result of an investigation launched by Irish authorities last year.

It discovered Facebook had not protected its platform from being "scraped" for information.

This resulted in the publication of data containing users' names, locations, and birth dates on an online hacker forum.

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It was a breach of rules requiring businesses to protect personal information.

In a statement, Meta stated that "unauthorized data scraping is unacceptable and against our rules."

The corporation said it has altered its policies to prevent such conduct.

Meta did not specify whether it would appeal the decision, as it did with the sanctions imposed on Instagram and WhatsApp.

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However, Meta isn't the only tech titan under scrutiny.

Last year, Amazon was penalized €750 million for its online advertising practices by regulators in Luxembourg, where it has its European headquarters.

French regulators also fined Google €150 million in January because users were not given an appropriate way to refuse so-called cookie trackers, which are used by online advertisers to track a person's internet browsing history.

Source: The New York Times

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