EU’s Massive Fine Against Meta Could End Up Harming European Consumers

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The European Union announced a new enforcement actions today against Meta, the parent company of Facebook. The action penalizes Meta for data transfers that are part of standard contractual clauses and includes a 1.2 billion Euro fine and an order to suspend data transfers within the company by October of this year.

Director of CEI’s Center for Technology and Innovation Jessica Melugin said:

“The EU’s incredibly short-sighted enforcement against Meta will turn out to be an own goal, with European consumers picking the ball out of the net. If they continue down this foolish path, more and more innovation will go the way of Google’s Bard AI in Europe: not offered. That’s a shame for European consumers and American tech companies who have done nothing wrong.”

CEI Vice President for Policy Iain Murray said:

“The EU has fined Meta an enormous sum retroactively for transferring data between nations in a way global companies must do to provide the services consumers want. It seems the EU is exploiting a difference between EU and US law on data to treat Meta, and potentially other US companies, as a cash cow. If the EU continues to act in this way it will be erecting a non-tariff barrier to digital trade. And it might then find that rather than milking cash cows it will have killed the geese that lay golden eggs in the form of modern digital services.”

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