We don’t agree with what the PIPC found: Google spokesperson
SEOUL South Korea fined Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O) Google and Meta Platforms (META.O) tens of millions of dollars for breaking privacy laws, officials said on Wednesday.
The Personal Information Protection Commission said in a statement that it gave Google a fine of 69.2 billion won ($50 million) and Meta a fine of 30.8 billion won ($22 million).
The privacy panel said that the companies did not clearly tell service users what they were doing and get their permission before collecting and analysing users’ behaviour to figure out what they were interested in or to make ads for them.
A Google spokesperson said, “We don’t agree with what the PIPC found, and we’ll look over the full written decision when we get it.”
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“We’ve always shown that we’re committed to making regular updates that give users control and transparency and make our products as useful as possible. We are still committed to working with the PIPC to protect South Korean users’ privacy.”
A Meta spokesperson said, “Even though we agree with the commission’s decision, we are sure that we work with our clients in a way that is legal and follows the rules of the area. As a result, we don’t agree with the decision of the commission and will consider all of our options, including going to court.”
Also on Wednesday, Google had its second setback in Europe in less than a year when the top court agreed with EU antitrust regulators that it had abused its dominance. Google lost its case against a 2.42 billion euro ($2.42 billion) fine last year, which was the first of three. However, the EU Court of Justice did reduce the fine by a small amount.
