A social network could be fined $ 1.6 billion in the EU

Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer and founder of Facebook Inc., listens at a joint hearing of Senate committees on the judiciary and trade in Washington, DC, United States, on Tuesday, April 10, 2018.

The maximum amount of fine that can be imposed on Facebook is 4% of the global annual business figure if it is established that the GDPR code has been violated. Since the social network generated revenues of more than $ 40.65 billion last year, the total amount of this fine could rise to about $ 1.63 billion.

But it should be noted that this is the maximum fine and that the EU has never used the most severe penalty under the law. Facebook also appears to have informed the regulators of the violation in a timely manner.

Vera Jourova, European Commissioner for Justice, said she was "in close contact" with the Irish DPC, which "is working intensely on this case". She told Joumanna Bercetche of CNBC that the GDPR has given the EU an effective way to punish companies that break the rules.

"For these cases, I think Europe is … equipped with GDPR because we have very strict rules and we have very powerful instruments to discipline companies that process and manage personal data. people, which is obviously the case with Facebook.We are waiting for more information over the next … days, "said Jourova.

The EU has severely repressed US technology companies. Last year, Google fined Google 2.4 billion euros after stating that the search engine giant had violated the antitrust rules with its online shopping practices . The regulators then hit Google for a fine of 4.34 billion euros earlier this year, accusing it of abusing its dominant position with its system of credit. Android mobile operation.

These were antitrust fines, however, and not in GDPR.