Nigeria’s competition watchdog announced on Friday that Meta Platforms had been fined $220 million.
The inquiry revealed that data-sharing on social media platforms had breached Nigerian consumer, data protection, and privacy laws.
According to the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) of Nigeria, Meta exploited its market dominance by forcing users to agree to exploitative privacy policies, appropriated the data of Nigerian users on its platforms without their consent, and treated Nigerians differently and discriminatorily than people in other jurisdictions with comparable laws.
Meta refrained from commenting, but the FCCPC stated that the business had given some papers and had hired attorneys who had interacted with the agency.
The investigations, which lasted more than 38 months, were conducted in tandem with Nigeria’s Data Protection Commission, according to FCCPC head Adamu Abdullahi.
Laptops 1000According to Abdullahi, the investigations revealed that Meta policies do not give users the choice or chance to decide whether to consent to the collection, use, and sharing of personal data.
“The totality of the investigation has concluded that Meta over the protracted period has engaged in conduct that constituted multiple and repeated, as well as continuing infringements… particularly, but not limited to abusive and invasive practices against data subjects in Nigeria,” Abdullahi stated.
“Being satisfied with the significant evidence on the record, and that Meta has been provided every opportunity to articulate any position, representations, refutations, explanations or defenses of their conduct, the Commission has now entered a final order and issued a penalty against Meta,” Abdullahi stated.
The final order stipulates the procedure for Meta to follow and abide by local legislation.
Following inquiries into data-sharing on its Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp platforms, Turkey’s Competition Board fined Meta 1.2 billion lira in May.
Due to claimed violations of data privacy rules, Meta has encountered resistance in Europe and other regions.
Europe disapproves of Meta’s proposal to develop its artificial intelligence algorithms using personal data without obtaining permission.
