Repeat offender WhatsApp fined $270M for EU privacy violation – eMarketer

The news: Facebook-owned WhatsApp was fined $270 million for breaking the European Union’s data privacy rules, per The Verge. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) found that WhatsApp failed to properly inform EU citizens how it handles their personal data, particularly how it shares that data with parent company Facebook. The DPC ordered WhatsApp to update its privacy policy informing users about personal data sharing. This will bring it into compliance with Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which governs how tech companies gather and use data in the EU. The GDPR came into effect in May 2018, and WhatsApp was one of the first companies hit with a privacy lawsuit under the regulatory regime. WhatsApp will appeal the decision. “We disagree with the decision today regarding the transparency we provided to people in 2018 and the penalties are entirely disproportionate,” a WhatsApp spokesperson told The Verge.  How we got here: WhatsApp’s porous privacy policy and how it shares user data with Facebook have raised the ire of regulators in various countries—and its run-ins with the EU on GDPR privacy breaches expose a consistent trend of flouting privacy regulations to sustain Facebook’s wider monetization objectives. WhatsApp sued the Indian government in…
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