South Korean authorities announced on Wednesday that Google and Meta had been fined $71.8 million (100 billion KRW) for violating the country’s privacy rules.
This is the country’s largest penalty for violating personal information protection regulations and the first fine linked to the gathering and use of behavioral information on online personalized advertising platforms.
The Case
According to the authority, Google and Meta did not obtain genuine authorization when gathering information from consumers who visit their websites and use other websites and apps for personalized adverts.
According to the press release, Google did not clearly inform users of the gathering and use of other companies’ behavioral information when they signed up for its service and set the default choice to “agree” while concealing further options available via the setup page.
According to the Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC), Meta also did not specify legally required details that consumers must know and did not obtain users’ consent when the company gathered and used their behavior information for personalized advertisements when users signed up.
The PIPC ordered the firms to fix the violations and fined Google 69.2 billion KRW ($50 million) and Meta 30.8 billion KRW ($22 million).
Google have stated ,
“We disagree with the PIPC’s findings and will be reviewing the full written decision once it’s shared with us,”
Similar cases overseas
Authorities in Europe have fined Google and Meta in recent years for failing to comply with data protection standards. The French data protection agency, the CNIL, issued its first General Data Protection Regulation penalties of $57 million in 2019 for violations of transparency and consent.
While Facebook-owned WhatsApp was fined $267 million last year for violating the GDPR’s transparency principle, Germany’s Federal Cartel Office has also put a ban on Meta’s data collection on users from third-party websites without their consent. In the EU, the order is still being challenged in court.