Spain fines Facebook €1.2 million

In September 2017, the Spanish national data protection regulator fined Facebook €1.2 million, alleging that the company collected personal information from Spanish users that could then be used for advertising. The investigation, which took place alongside others in Belgium, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, found three cases in which Facebook had collected information such as gender, religious beliefs, personal tastes, and browsing histories of millions of Spanish users without disclosing to them how the information would be used and, in the case of data collected on third-party websites, without obtaining their consent. The regulator called the terms in the company's privacy policies "generic and unclear", and said it had found evidence that the company kept users' information for more than 17 months after they closed their accounts. 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-spain-fine/facebook-fined-1-2-million-euros-by-spanish-data-watchdog-idUSKCN1BM1OU
tags: Facebook, Spain, tracking, data sharing, data protection, regulatory actions
Writer: Robert Hetz and Isla Binnie
Publication: Reuters