Facebook purchased giant messaging WhatsApp for $16 billion, according to a regulatory filing, in 2014.
But now Facebook has been fined by European Union for $122M. Fact behind this big fine to Facebook is that Facebook shared misleading information of user’s. Facebook allows users to know the other user if the other user is on Whatsapp on not. It allows the other user to connect both of them on Whatsapp, which is quiet perfect but can also harm privacy issues of a user.
Whatsapp and Facebook made an agreement which user has to agree, as follow below
The European Commission said today that Facebook has told it at the moment that it could not automatically match user accounts on its own platform and WhatsApp, but they did opposite to it.
The European Commission said: “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.”
Facebook have always answered to this “misleading information” that it’s an “error” or some kind of temporary contract with the Whatsapp.
Facebook says that they have acted in a good way since their first interaction s with the commission and they have also provided accurate information at every moment. The errors Facebook made in our 2014 filings were not intentional and the Commission has confirmed that they did not impact the outcome of the merger review.
Today statement in EU conference, the Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said: “Today’s decision sends a clear signal to companies that they must comply with all aspects of EU merger rules, including the obligation to provide correct information. And it imposes a proportionate and deterrent fine on Facebook”.
No doubt Facebook is trying to cover itself in a way of some common evidences and remains to be whether the company will face further regulatory problems which are totally related to its ownership plus ruling and operating on Whatsapp.
STech Park 