Meta will be forced to pay a record €1.2 billion fine over claims it abused its users’ data. The Irish Data Protection Commission said that Meta had broken the EU’s data protection rules by moving data between Europe and the US. It had failed to protect European users from having their data used under US law when it did so, regulators said. It will now be fined €1.2 billion, as well as being required to delete the Facebook data or move it back into Europe. That fine is easily a record under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulations, or GDPR. The previous record was held by Amazon – which was fine €746 million by regulators in Luxembourg – though the four biggest fines after that have been paid by Meta as part of data issues at Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Meta called the fine “unjustified and unnecessary”, and said that it would appeal the ruling. It also said that there would be no immediate disruption to the way Facebook works. The company has repeatedly threatened that new limits on how data is transferred to the US could cause it to shut down Facebook and Instagram in Europe. Meta said in response to the new ruling that it will be able to continue to operate as it does today if a new data agreement between the EU and US is able to come into effect. Previously, data sharing between the US and Europe was governed by a framework called the “Privacy Shield”, which allowed that data to flow if US companies showed they were using proper data protections. In 2020, however, that was scrapped after the European Court of Justice said that it was not properly protecting data. Since then, lawmakers have been working on a new deal, known as the Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework, though that is yet to go into effect. But lawmakers have indicated that it should be ready by October, when the deadline for Meta to delete the Facebook data at the heart of the fine is up. Read More Instagram back online after hours of global outages Instagram experiencing global outages Solar panel efficiency to increase 50% with first ‘miracle’ tandem cells

Meta has been fined a record-breaking €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) by European regulators for transferring data belonging to Facebook's EU users to servers in the United States.

Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc. was hit by a record €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) European Union privacy fine

PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 22, 2023--

HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 22, 2023--

China has banned Chinese companies working on key infrastructure projects from buying products from US semiconductor manufacturer Micron, in a major escalation of an ongoing battle between the world's top two economies over access to crucial technology.

By Martin Coulter and Supantha Mukherjee LONDON/STOCKHOLM As the race to develop more powerful artificial intelligence services like

This week’s new entertainment releases include an album from Matchbox Twenty, dinosaurs coming to life in the second season of “Prehistoric Planet” on Apple TV+ and the action-comedy series “American Born Chinese” on Disney+ with new Oscar winners Ke Huy Quan and Michele Yeoh

TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 21, 2023--

Instagram was restored online after experiencing global outages, the social media company said. Down Detector, a website that tracks outages, reported 56,628 reports at around 11pm on Sunday. The Down Detector location map showed the outages spread across the UK with reports of outages coming from the US and Australia as well. Instagram said at 1.19am on Monday that the issue which had caused the outage had been resolved. The photo and video networking service appeared to be online again before 1am with reports of the outages dropping to less than 500 by 1:.. According to Down Detector, 92% of the outages were on the app, 6% via the website and 2% on the login. Users could not refresh their feed or post during the outages. It came after Instagram experienced an outage on March 9 where thousands of users reported similar issues.

Instagram, the popular photo-sharing app owned by Meta Platforms Inc., appeared to suffer an outage Sunday evening in

Instagram is experiencing global outages with more than 50,000 users reporting issues from just before 11pm on Sunday night. Down Detector, a website that tracks outages, has had 56,628 reports at around 11pm. The Down Detector location map shows the outages are spread right across the UK with reports of the outages coming from the US and Australia as well. Instagram’s owners Meta have yet to publicly address the outage or say when the Instagram may come back online. According to Down Detector, 92% of the outages were on the app, 6% via the website and 2% on the login. Users cannot refresh their Instagram feed. Instagram had an outage on March 9 where thousands of users reported similar issues. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live