The European Union has once again issued a ruling that prevents Meta from doing too much with user information. The EU’s highest court has ruled that there must be limits on how long Meta and other social media networks can use people’s information for advertising targeting strategies.
TechCrunch reported that the EU’s highest court upheld an earlier opinion published in April by the court’s advisors. The previous ruling also called for limits on how long companies can keep customers’ personal data for advertising targeting purposes.
The judgment referred its retention guidelines to the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), enacted by the EU in 2018. Article 65 of the GDPR provides for an individual’s “right to be forgotten” and the right to rectification and erasure of personal data. Failure to comply with GDPR can result in a worldwide annual revenue penalty of 4%, a figure that can reach billions of dollars for social media giants like Meta. Last year, Meta had to pay a $414 million (approximately €390 million) fine for illegally requiring users of social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp to accept personalized ads. I didn’t.
The EU and Meta, along with other big tech companies such as Apple and Google, are at loggerheads over the use of personal data related to digital markets laws. Meta is currently awaiting a fine for violating the EU’s Digital Markets Act, which required users to pay a fee to prevent the company from collecting and sharing personal data. Last year, the EU Court of Justice ruled that Meta must obtain consent before serving personal ads to users in the EU.
