My colleague Tony Romm reported that yesterday's fine is the first major penalty brought against a U.S. technology company for a violation of Europe's data privacy regime that took effect in May 2018. Many technology companies have lengthy and complicated privacy policies that critics say fall short of explaining to consumers how their data is being used. She's levied a record-setting antitrust fine against Google and scrutinized Apple and Facebook. In a joint statement, the European Publishers Council, the European Newspaper Publishers’ Association and the European Magazine Media Association criticized Google. It’s just a drop in a big bucket of data Facebook has already amassed.

Source: Washington Post January 22, 2019 13:41 UTC