South Korea on Wednesday slapped record fines on Google and Facebook’s parent Meta over violations of privacy laws, amid growing concern about a lack of personal data protection in the highly digitalised society.
The state-run Personal Information Protection Commission said it fined Google Won69.2bn ($50mn) and Meta Won30.8bn ($22mn) for collecting personal information without users’ prior consent and using it for customised online advertisements.
The privacy watchdog said the US companies’ business practices could cause serious privacy infringements, as they did not properly inform users nor obtain their consent for collecting and analysing behavioural information from their online activities.