Paris - Facebook has been fined
150 000 euros [$166 000] by France's data protection watchdog
for failing to prevent its users' data being accessed by
advertisers.
Watchdog CNIL said its fine - which was imposed on both
Facebook Inc and Facebook Ireland - was part of a wider European
investigation also being carried out in Belgium, the
Netherlands, Spain and Germany into some of Facebook's
practices.
The 150 000 euro fine is small in the context of the
company, which has quarterly revenue of about $8 billion and a
stock market capitalisation which stands at around $435 billion.
But it is the maximum amount the CNIL could fine when it started
the investigation on the tech giant.
The CNIL can now issue fines of up to 3 million euros, after
the passing of a new law in October 2016.
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Last year, the French watchdog had given Facebook a deadline
to stop tracking non-users' web activity without their consent
and ordered the social network to stop some transfers of
personal data to the United States.
Facebook argued that the Irish data protection authority,
not the CNIL, was the competent authority to formulate such
orders, as the social media company's European headquarters are
located in Dublin.
In a statement on Tuesday, Facebook did not say whether it
would now take action as a result of the fine.
“We take note of the CNIL’s decision with which we
respectfully disagree," Facebook said in a statement emailed to
Reuters.
"At Facebook, putting people in control of their privacy is
at the heart of everything we do. Over recent years, we've
simplified our policies further to help people understand how we
use information to make Facebook better," it said.
The French order was the first significant action taken
against a company transferring Europeans' data to the United
States following an EU court ruling last year that struck down
an agreement that thousands of companies, including Facebook,
had relied on to avoid cumbersome EU data transfer rules.
The transatlantic Safe Harbour pact was ruled illegal last
year amid concerns over mass U.S. government snooping. EU data
protection authorities said companies had three months to set up
alternative legal arrangements for transferring data.
A new EU data protection law is set to enter into force in
2018, which could see companies get fined up to 4 percent of
their global turnover if they fall foul of the new regulation.