14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook has been fined 110 million euros for providing what the European Commission Merger Regulation considers to be "misleading information" regarding its WhatsApp takeover in 2014.
The European Commission requires that companies in a merger investigation provide correct information to be reviewed, which Facebook failed to do. More specifically, following the $19 billion deal the two companies signed in 2014, Facebook said it would not be able to establish automated data matching between users' Facebook accounts and the WhatsApp user accounts.
All was well until last August, when WhatsApp changed its privacy policy to say that Facebook, its parent company, would gain access to users' phone numbers, as well as other data, such as the mobile OS they are using, screen resolution and so on. All this would help Facebook target ads, especially if people have their phone numbers attached to their Facebook accounts.
What happened?
In one go, Facebook committed two separate infringements through misleading information, the commission said - one in the merger notification form and one in the reply to the commission's request for more information.
The European Commission is upset that Facebook denied that the matching between their users' accounts and WhatsApp was possible when it knew such a thing could actually be done.
"Today's decision sends a clear signal to companies that they must comply with all aspects of EU merger rules, including the obligation to provide correct information," said Commissioner Margrethe Vestager. "The commission considers that Facebook staff were aware of the user-matching possibility and that Facebook was aware of the relevance of user matching for the commission's assessment, and of its obligations under the Merger Regulation."
The fine is quite a hefty one and it's not even the first time Facebook is being sanctioned in Europe. In fact, just last September, following the change of the same privacy policy that drew the 110 million euros fine, WhatsApp was ordered to stop sharing user data with Facebook in Germany and to delete any data it had already collected on German WhatsApp users. When Facebook failed to comply with the order, a court case was initiated. The social network appealed the courts, but the appeal was rejected.