On Tuesday, The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced its final decisions following two inquiries into Facebook parent Meta Platforms, Inc (NASDAQ: META) Meta Platforms Ireland Limited (MPIL).
The decisions made by the Commissioners for Data Protection, Dr. Des Hogan and Dale Sunderland, included several reprimands and a penalty of approximately $264 million (251 million euros).
The DPC launched these own-volition inquiries following a personal data breach reported by MPIL in September 2018.
This data breach impacted roughly 29 million Facebook accounts globally, of which about 3 million were from the EU and EEA.
The categories of personal data affected included the user's full name, email address, and phone number. The exploitation by unauthorized third parties of user tokens on the Facebook platform led to the breach.
MPIL and its U.S. parent company remedied the breach shortly after its discovery.
Meta and other Big Tech giants have faced regulatory scrutiny and penalties for violation of user data privacy.
In September 2024, the DPC penalized Meta with 91 million euros ($101.5 million) for 2019 violations of the General Data Protection Regulation's (GDPR) security standards.
The DPC launched a probe in April 2019 under the GDPR after Meta disclosed that it stored "hundreds of millions" of user passwords in plaintext on its servers. Additionally, the company engineers reportedly accessed the 600 million passwords stored in plaintext.
In May 2023, the DPC fined Meta 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) for allegedly transferring personal EU data to the U.S.
Meta held $70.9 billion in cash and equivalents as of September 30, 2024. Meta Platforms stock surged 80% year-to-date.
BofA Securities analyst Justin Post hailed Meta as an "AI Story" backed by Llama and Meta AI gaining traction. Post expects Meta's Al-driven ad advances to play out in 2025.
Rosenblatt analyst Barton Crockett said Meta's AI investments drove the 20% revenue growth after the third-quarter print and, if sustained, could continue to support growth despite increasing capital expenditure.
Price Action: META stock is down 0.30% at $632.35 at the last check on Tuesday.