Nigeria’s competition watchdog has fined Meta Platforms USD 220 million after findings that data-sharing on social media platforms breached regional consumer, privacy, and data protection 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 right away, but the FCCPC stated in a statement that the business had given certain documents 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.
According to Abdullahi, the investigations revealed that Meta policies do not give users the choice or chance to decide for themselves whether or not to provide consent for the collection, use, and sharing of personal data.
Repeated Infringements
“The totality of the investigation has concluded that Meta over the protracted period of time 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 said, as reported by the Zawya.
“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 defences of their conduct, the Commission have now entered a final order and issued a penalty against Meta,” he added.
According to Abdullahi, the final order specifies the procedures that Meta must follow to abide by local laws.
Turkey’s Competition Board fined Meta 1.2 billion lira in May after looking into data-sharing on the company’s WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads platforms.
Meta has encountered opposition in Europe and other regions due to purported violations of data privacy regulations. Europe has expressed disapproval of Meta’s plan to train its artificial intelligence models using personal data without obtaining consent.
In the meantime, plans to look into whether digital platforms, like Meta, unfairly compete with news publishers by using their content to generate ad revenue have been announced by South Africa’s competition watchdog.