Here’s a bit of news that probably won’t shock you: Facebook parent company Meta was hit with a 265 million euro fine at the end of November for failing to protect users’ information from data scrapers. If you’re experiencing deja vu, you’re not alone. I wrote about a different, unrelated and totally massive fine against Facebook back in October. And while the amounts, offending companies and currencies may change, these fines against Big Tech are disappointingly common.
Lately, it almost seems like regulators are tiring of Big Tech’s dubious data practices as much as consumers are. They’re bringing lawsuits and levelling complaints and slapping fines on companies that mishandle our data and abuse our privacy. So far, it’s still not amounting to a sea change in the way these businesses operate, but all the same, it’s an interesting trend to keep an eye on. When we zoom out and look at the bigger picture of these financial penalties, we can get a better sense of the trends we’re seeing—and the role they may or may not be playing to regulate the industry. So, here’s a list of some of the notable Big Tech fines over the last couple of decades. It’s not exhaustive, and only captures fines related to data and privacy—but it does help paint a picture of the wrist slaps:
August 2012: Google agrees to a 22.5 million dollar fine to settle a Federal Trade Commission charge that it bypassed Apple’s privacy settings to serve targeted ads to consumers.
August 2013: Facebook agrees to pay a 20 million dollar fine after a class-action lawsuit by users who appeared in sponsored stories without their consent.
February 2019: TikTok is fined 5.7 million dollars by the Federal Trade Commission for illegally collecting the names, email addresses, pictures and locations of kids under age 13.
July 2019: Facebook agrees to an eye-watering 5 billion dollar fine to settle a years-long investigation by the Federal Trade Commission spurred by the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The company also agrees to new protections for user data.
September 2019: Google is fined 170 million dollars by the Federal Trade Commission for violating children’s privacy on YouTube by collecting and profiting from children’s information. The ill-gotten data was used to show them targeted ads.
February 2021: Facebook agrees to a 650 million dollar settlement for violating an Illinois privacy law by using facial-recognition technology without consent to scan photos uploaded by users.
July 2021: Amazon is fined 746 million euros by Luxembourg’s National Commission for Data Protection for the way it uses customer data for targeted advertising purposes.
September 2021: WhatsApp is fined 225 million euros by the Irish Data Protection Commission for breaching GDPR privacy regulations by not being transparent enough about how it handles user data.
August 2022: Snapchat agrees to a 35 million dollar settlement with the state of Illinois over collecting biometric data without consent.
September 2022: Meta is fined 405 million euros the Irish Data Protection Commission for failing to protect children’s privacy on Instagram.
November 2022: Facebook agrees to pay a 90 million dollar settlement for unlawfully tracking the web browsing activity of users after they logged off the site.
What we’ve see in the last few years is a wide range of penalties—and some precedent-setting fines, especially in the EU. Many experts argue that the fines are much too small to even make a difference to these companies. Case-in-point: Facebook’s stock actually went up after the 5 billion dollar fine was announced.
Arguably, the bigger impact of the fines isn’t the dollars and cents. That’s still small potatoes to Big Tech. But the companies often commit to change or increased oversight when they reach a settlement. Ahead of Meta’s September 2022 fine for mishandling children’s privacy, Instagram changed its default settings for children’s profiles.
Those small shifts in policy amount to incremental change in the right direction—but we still have a long way to go if we want to deter bad actors: companies are still rolling the dice and deciding to put profits over privacy. Just look at the case of Life360, which was caught selling children’s location data to data brokers.
At the risk of inducing more deja vu, let me conclude by saying that the onus for protecting your family online is still squarely on you. Protecting children in the digital world still falls to parents more-so than regulators. But maybe one day, the fines will begin to add up to the point that they really begin to tip the scales in the people’s favor.
A deeper dive
Here are a few helpful resources in case you want to really dig into today's topic:
The most recent fine against Meta is related to something called “data scraping.” Regulators have asserted that Facebook didn’t do enough to prevent bad actors from lifting information off the website and publishing it online. The scale? Around 500 million users had their information stolen.
Can million dollar fines for billion dollar companies really deter bad behavior? That’s the rather rhetorical question that critics like to ask whenever there’s another big fine. According to PC Mag, “[d]ata privacy regulations are simply the cost of doing business rather than deterrents.”
TL;DR
Too long; didn't read. It shouldn't be a full-time job to keep up on industry news, so here is a mercifully quick summary of some other notable developments:
Suddenly, AI portraits seem to be everywhere. Some have hilarious, poorly rendered hands or haunting, empty eyes. Others are artistic and beautiful—and most are coming from an app called Lensa. While they might be a fun diversion, the app isn’t without controversy: the AI that generates the portraits was trained on images scraped from the internet without consent, and the different styles of portraits are based on real art from real artists who are not receiving compensation.
There’s a new AI chat bot on the scene, and apparently is creepy-good. It can solve elaborate problems and follow intricate instructions—and even write college-level essays, which obviously creates opportunities for wily students to bypass their homework. (Parents be warned!) AI with these kinds of capabilities raises ethical concerns, especially since it can simulate human conversation.
And Lastly
Here are a few more pieces of original writing from me and my team—just in case you're keen for more:
Every kid has a story to tell—and we just launched a new app that can help children tap their creative potential and learn basic animation. Learn more about Kinzoo Adventures here.
The holidays are just around the corner, which means many of us are planning on bringing home some new tech! Check out our guides for setting up a new iPhone or Android device here.