Meta Fined $277 Million for Leak of Half a Billion Users (bloomberg.com) 22
Meta Platforms was slapped with a $277 million fine for failing to prevent the leak of the personal data of more than half a billion users of its Facebook service. From a report: The Irish Data Protection Commission, the main privacy watchdog for Meta in the European Union, levied the fine following a probe that found the social-media company had failed to apply strict safeguards required under the bloc's sweeping General Data Protection Regulation.
On top of the fine -- the third-biggest under GDPR -- the watchdog ordered Meta's Irish unit to make sure its processing complies with the law, according to an emailed statement on Monday. The Irish authority is the lead watchdog for some of Silicon Valley's biggest tech firms that have set up an EU base in the country, including Meta. It opened its probe following revelations that "a collated dataset of Facebook personal data" had been published on the internet. Personal information on 533 million Facebook users worldwide reemerged on a hacker website last year, including their phone numbers and email addresses.
On top of the fine -- the third-biggest under GDPR -- the watchdog ordered Meta's Irish unit to make sure its processing complies with the law, according to an emailed statement on Monday. The Irish authority is the lead watchdog for some of Silicon Valley's biggest tech firms that have set up an EU base in the country, including Meta. It opened its probe following revelations that "a collated dataset of Facebook personal data" had been published on the internet. Personal information on 533 million Facebook users worldwide reemerged on a hacker website last year, including their phone numbers and email addresses.
wat (Score:3)
Meta Fined $277 Million for Leak of Half a Billion Users
Try Meta Fined $277 Million for Leak of Half a Billion Users' Data. What you said was that half a billion users leaked out of Meta.
Leaking (Score:2)
So they have virtual urination?
How much per user? (Score:3)
How much is that per affected user under Irish jurisdiction?
The half a billion people figure is world-wide, Ireland only has a population of about 5 million.
In any case, it will be interesting to read through the judgement because if the fairly conservative Irish regulator judged it to be worthy of a big fine, it's likely that other regulators in Europe will too.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:How much per user? (Score:5, Insightful)
Meta's net income for 2021 was $39bn, so they were fined about 1.2% of their yearly profit. Much more than a rounding error.
I imagine some employees responsible faced some repercussions, although probably not the right ones.
Re: (Score:3)
A bit more than a rounding error but still a rather light punishment in the grand scheme of things. To put this into perspective, let's say corporate profit is functionally similar to discretionary spending, and you have a healthy upper-middle-class income that nets you $20k for discretionary spending per year. If you got a $250 speeding ticket, that would be the same to you as Facebook getting this fine.
It also works out to about 55c per user record leaked, which makes it sound like a total joke.
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The USA would have fined them $250k.
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No kidding, so much for the EU being tougher than the US.
To me, these leaks should be the price of 2 years of credit monitoring per person and that amount goes directly to the person who's data was leaked. Then that person has the option to chose their own monitoring service. Or better yet, you would send your bill to an independent clearing house. A few years ago I got free monitoring from some no-name useless service who's only claim to fame was they were cheap.
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Correct headline (Score:3)
Meta gets a slap on the wrist despite GDPR regulations allowing serious fines - again.
Tickled, not slapped (Score:3)
I'm sure they're devastated.
the fine should be much higher (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Unless users' data is worth more than $1 apiece. Mine is, which is why I have never had a social media account.
(Before you say it, /. is antisocial media).
Re:the fine should be much higher (Score:5, Insightful)
If I leaked your user data, name, address, phone number, etc., and I gave $1 to the government (not you), would you say that makes us even? Corporations regularly pay much more for incentives and marketing just to get that kind of data. The additional effort you need to put in to fend off just the direct marketing from a leak like that costs you more than $1, and to reiterate, you get nothing. This fine is a joke. Facebook should be fined an amount that wipes out a month of their revenue, so roughly $10 billion, plus restitution.
Re: the fine should be much higher (Score:2)
Amazing the Irish Data Commission did anything (Score:4, Interesting)
The amazing thing about this is that the Irish Data Protection Commission did anything at all. The second-most attractive thing about Ireland as a place to put your EU subsidiary of a US corporation is its incredibly ineffective and supine regulator (the most attractive thing is the low corporate tax rate).
There have been a lot of rumours that data protection regulators in parts of the EU that are more effective, like Germany and Netherlands, told the Irish DPC that if the Irish did not act, the Germans and Dutch would start their own enforcement actions, and that this finally prodded the Irish DPC into doing something.
It isn't your personal data .. (Score:1)
Seems like this needs some nuance... (Score:2)
Were the phone numbers and email addresses of 533 million users leaked? Or was it the aggregation of all the postings and other information discoverable through scraping that was posted, and sometimes some of those people put their email addresses and phone numbers in there?
Much as I'd like to land Meta straight in the dust bin of history, this makes a difference.
Chump Change (Score:2)