EU fines Facebook €110m over WhatsApp deal quoting : "arabnews"

referring to Robert-Jan BartunekbyEuropean Union (EU) antitrust regulators have fined Facebook €110 million ($165 million) for giving misleading information during a vetting of its deal to acquire messaging service WhatsApp in 2014. Facebook purchased WhatsApp, which now has more than 1 billion users in over 180 countries, for $US22 billion in 2014. "The Commission has found that, contrary to Facebook's statements in the 2014 merger review process, the technical possibility of automatically matching Facebook and WhatsApp users' identities already existed in 2014, and that Facebook staff were aware of such a possibility," the Commission said. Calling it a "proportionate and deterrent fine", the European Commission, which acts as the EU's competition watchdog, said on Thursday that Facebook had said it could not automatically match user accounts on its namesake platform and WhatsApp but two years later launched a service that did exactly that.


as mentioned in
EU fines Facebook over 'misleading' info in WhatsApp takeover
"However, in August 2016, WhatsApp announced updates to its terms of service and privacy policy, including the possibility of linking WhatsApp users' phone numbers with Facebook users' identities," it said. It noted that when Facebook notified the Commission of the acquisition in 2014, the company had said it would "be unable to establish reliable automated matching between Facebook users' accounts and WhatsApp users' accounts". BRUSSELS: The European Commission on Thursday fined US social media giant Facebook €110 million ($120 million) for providing incorrect and misleading information on its takeover of WhatsApp. "We've acted in good faith since our very first interactions with the Commission and we've sought to provide accurate information at every turn," a Facebook spokesperson said. In its statement Thursday, the Commission recalled that the merger rules require companies to provide regulators with the accurate information essential to any review.


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