Little information to users on how personal data is used: this is the main accusation of the Italian Antitrust Authority against Facebook.
It amounts to 7 million euros the fine imposed by the Autorità Garante della Concorrenza del Mercato, i.e. the Italian Antitrust Authority, against Facebook Ireland Ltd. and Facebook Inc. “for not having implemented what was prescribed in the measure issued against them in November 2018”. After more than two years of litigation, therefore, Facebook receives a fine equal to a smidgen of its turnover, for which the social giant has already appealed to the Council of State.
The affair, needless to say, has to do with privacy. Topic increasingly thorny for the group of Mark Zuckerberg, currently embroiled in the global controversy following the unilateral change of privacy policy of WhatsApp, for which it has already received a warning from the Italian Privacy Authority. According to the Antitrust Authority, in a nutshell, Facebook implemented deceptive practices to invite users to sign up to the platform without sufficiently informing them of the quantity and quality of the data collected, nor of the purposes of the data collection itself. Facebook, moreover, had been obliged to publish a rectification statement on its home page. All this more than two years ago, but the Antitrust also points out that the two companies have not published the rectifying statement and have not ceased the established unfair practice.
Facebook: why it has been fined
Facebook has been fined because it would not have explained at the moment of the activation of the new user profiles, in a sufficient and clear way, all “the activity of collection, with commercial intent, of the data provided by them and, more in general, of the remunerative purposes underlying the service, emphasizing vice versa the gratuitousness”.
But that’s not all: according to the Antitrust “the information provided by Facebook was generic and incomplete and did not provide an adequate distinction between the use of data necessary for the personalization of the service (with the aim of facilitating socialization with other users) and the use of data to carry out targeted advertising campaigns”.
Facebook does it again
Finally, the Market Authority reiterates that Facebook Ireland Ltd. and Facebook Inc. have not desisted from this behavior at all but, on the contrary, the two companies have not published the rectifying statement and have not ceased the established unfair practice: “even though they have eliminated the claim of gratuitousness during registration to the platform, they still do not provide immediate and clear information on the collection and use of user data for commercial purposes”.
Facebook has appealed
In an official note Facebook takes note of the Italian Antitrust’s decision but reiterates that it has already appealed the initial measure. It also claims to have made several changes to protect the privacy of its users: “Protecting privacy is extremely important to us and we’ve already made a number of changes, including to our Terms of Use, to further clarify how we use data to deliver our services and personalized advertising.”