Spain fines Meta: pay €479 million for GDPR data

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Meta has been fined again, and yes, it’s for how it handled your data. But this time, the bill is especially spicy.

A court in Madrid has ordered Meta to hand over €479 million (about $552 million) to 87 Spanish media outlets after ruling that the company unlawfully processed user data to gain a competitive edge in advertising. 

Basically, the court looked at Meta’s data playbook and went, “Yeah… no. Try again.”

Here’s what happened: when the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) kicked in back in 2018, Meta decided to change how it legally justified collecting mountains of user data on Facebook and Instagram. 

Instead of saying, “We’re doing this because users consented,” Meta switched to, “Actually, this data collection is necessary for our contract with you.” You know, the contract you definitely read and didn’t just click through at 2 AM.

Regulators later ruled that this “contract necessity” excuse didn’t fly. So in 2023, Meta quietly switched back to good old-fashioned user consent. 

But by then, Spain’s digital media companies had had enough. They sued, arguing that Meta’s data-driven ad machine gave it an unfair advantage, one they simply couldn’t compete with.

The court agreed. According to the ruling, Meta’s data practices gave it a “significant competitive advantage” in online advertising, effectively siphoning off ad revenue that might have gone to Spanish publishers instead. (Via: The Associated Press)

The judges calculated the fine as a percentage of Meta’s ad earnings during the years it used the now-illegal justification. 

Think of it like backdated rent for living very comfortably in a gray legal area.

The court didn’t mince words either, saying that Meta’s massive data harvesting hurt Spanish media by making it impossible for them to match its ad-targeting precision. 

It’s hard to compete when one player knows everyone’s favorite dog meme, political opinions, and late-night snack habits.

Meta, unsurprisingly, is not thrilled. The company has already said it will appeal, calling the decision “baseless” and arguing that it fully complies with the law and gives users clear choices and tools to control their data. 

You know, those tools you definitely found buried under seven submenus and a pop-up.

Whether the appeal will change anything remains to be seen. 

But for now, Spanish media outlets have scored a massive legal win, and Meta just got another very expensive reminder that GDPR is not a vibe, it’s a rulebook.