Meta Platforms (META.O) is violating European data privacy standards in Norway, according to the country’s data regulator, in a case that might have broader European consequences.
Since August 14, Meta has been fined one million crowns ($94,145) every day for violating users’ privacy by harvesting user data and utilizing it to target advertisements at them.
Big Tech uses a business model known as behavioral advertising.
The owner of Facebook and Instagram is seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent the order, which imposes a daily fine for the next three months, from being implemented.
The fine is legal since Meta is not complying with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), according to Hanne Inger Bjurstroem Jahren, a lawyer for the regulator, Datatilsynet.
“There is no discussion on whether the company is in violation of these rules … Today Meta breaks GDPR rules,” she told the court, speaking on the last day of a two-day hearing.
On Tuesday, Meta informed the court that it had already committed to requesting user consent and that Datatilsynet employed a “expedited process” that was unnecessary and did not give the firm enough time to respond.
The regulator stated that it was unclear when and how Meta would seek user consent, and that users’ rights were being violated in the meanwhile.
Datatilsynet might make the fine permanent by referring its decision to the European Data Protection Board, which has the authority to do so if it agrees with the decision of the Norwegian regulator.
That could also widen the decision’s territorial scope to the rest of Europe. Datatilsynet had yet to take this step.
Norway is not a member of the European Union but is part of the European single market.
