Social-Media
Facebook has agreed to pay a fine of CAD 9 million (around Rs 48.89 crores)
Facebook has agreed to pay a fine of CAD 9 million (around Rs 48.89 crores) for making false or misleading statements about its privacy settings, Canada's competition watchdog reported Tuesday.
An inquiry into the activities of the social media network from 2012 to 2018 found that the company gave Canadians the illusion that users could monitor who saw their personal details on Facebook and Messenger.
But it enabled sharing of their data with third party developers, the Competition Bureau said in a statement.
"Canadians expect and deserve truth from digital businesses and privacy claims are no exception," competition commissioner Matthew Boswell said.
He noted that Facebook had promised to publicly end the practice in 2015 but continued to require third-party access to messages and posts from its users until 2018.
As part of the settlement, Facebook agreed not to make false or misleading representations about the disclosure of personal information, and to pay CAD 500,000 (approximately Rs. 2.71 crores) investigation costs to the Competition Bureau.
In Canada the company has around 24 million users.
Canada's data security officer brought Facebook to trial in February for breaching privacy laws. The firm called it overreach, and asked a judge to quash the case.
