Ireland imposes $400 million fine on Meta for targeted advertising practices

Since early last year, the Data Protection Commission of the country has imposed fines totaling over one billion dollars.

The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has issued Meta with a large fine for its handling of user data, which could potentially impact parts of the company's advertising business. The DPC announced that Meta must pay a fine of €210 million ($222 million) for breaching European Union privacy regulations with Facebook, and an additional fine of €180 million ($191 million) for similar violations with Instagram.

These fines come as a result of two complaints made in 2018 about Meta's (formerly known as Facebook) compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The complaints claimed that Facebook and Instagram's terms of service, which required users to accept a new contract that included the processing of their data, amounted to "forcing" users to consent to targeted advertising and other actions in violation of the GDPR.

The Data Protection Commission (DPC) in Europe has determined that Meta's updates were not sufficiently clear and, after consulting with the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), decided that Meta cannot use the contract as a defense for its business practices. As a result, the DPC has imposed fines on the company and required it to bring its operations into compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) within three months. The EDPB's guidance also led to an increase in the planned fines for Meta.

There have been previous rulings that Meta violated European regulations, including a $276 million fine in November 2021 for a data leak, a $402 million fine in September for how it handled data for teens on Instagram, and a $18 million fine in March for record-keeping issues. Meta has said that it plans to appeal the latest decisions, but denied that it will have to stop targeted advertising.

In a blog post, the company stated that "these decisions do not prevent personalized advertising on our platform. The decisions relate only to which legal basis Meta uses when offering certain advertising. We are assessing a variety of options that will allow us to continue offering a fully personalized service to our users."