EU Penalized $266M To WhatsApp For GDPR Violation

The European Union regulators penalized Facebook Inc's FB WhatsApp €225 million ($266 million) for failing to disclose how it shared its data with its parent company, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), it is a record fine, representing 0.8% of Facebook's 2020 profit.
The Irish data regulator applied a penalty of over four times than initially proposed after coming under pressure from other European countries, the Financial Times reports.
In its ruling after a two-year investigation, Ireland also ordered WhatsApp Ireland to bring its data sharing with Facebook in line with GDPR.
WhatsApp previously faced flak for forcing users to share their data, including their phone number, with Facebook.
WhatsApp has refuted the allegations and will appeal the decision. The ruling follows Luxembourg's record €746 million penalties on Amazon.com Inc AMZN in July for breaching the GDPR.
In December, Ireland had fined Twitter Inc TWTR €450 million for not informing regulators about a data leak within 72 hours.