Amazon’s Massive GDPR Fine demonstrates the power and limitations of the Act

They ordered us horrible fines, and GDPR has finally delivered. Last week Amazon financial records revealed that Luxembourg officials fined the retailer 746 million euros ($ 883 million) for violating European regulations.

The fine is unprecedented: it is the largest GDPR fine ever issued and more than double all other GDPR fines combined. The economic penalty that Amazon is attracting comes at a time when they are enforcing lax GDPR and suffering severe fines. Experts say companies are allowed to overemphasize people’s privacy because GDPR investigations are not too slow and ineffective. Some want it to be GDPR completely ripped off.

But Luxembourg’s action against Amazon stands out for two reasons: First, it shows the potential power of the GDPR; the second shows how these regulations are applied consistently across the EU. It is for these two reasons that it is undoubtedly the most important decision of the GDPR given.

“With so many large cases piled up in front of regulators, we were waiting to see when one of these cases would be resolved to show that the GDPR basically has teeth,” says Estelle Massé, head of data protection for the nonprofit Internet access defense team. Now. La Quadrature du Net, a French civil liberties group that initially filed a lawsuit against Amazon, said regulators had given it “hope” to take action “against Big Tech.”

Although the owner is fined, he knows little about the details of who received the fine from Amazon. Luxembourg officials took the case because the country acts as the main base for Amazon in Europe. The small nation has historically been labeled tax haven“There have been allegations of Amazon tax evasion in the country.” Rejected by the European courts. But by imposing a fine on Amazon, the Luxembourg National Data Protection Commission has, at least in the short term, entered into a pro-privacy approach.

The Quadrature of the Net’s original May 2018 complaint, Which was filed on behalf of 10,000 people, claims that Amazon’s advertising system is not based on “free permission”. But that’s all we know. The Luxembourg regulator said it issued a decision against Amazon on July 15, but did not publish further details. A spokesman for the authority said Luxembourg’s “professional secrecy” law meant it could not publish details until the appeal process was completed. And Amazon, which is horrible data hungry“He says he’ll appeal the fine.”

“There has been no data breach, and no customer data has been explained to third parties,” an Amazon spokesperson says. All of this is fine, but companies have not had to suffer data breaches to break GDPR rules. The spokesman advanced the Luxembourg ruling on the grounds that the company shows customers “significant publicity” based on “subjective and unproven interpretations of European privacy law” and that the proposed fine is fully proportionate to that interpretation.

Amazon may have a point. Appeals process or negotiation may lower fine – UK data protection regulator’s fine against British Airways fell from £ 184 million ($ 256 million) Just £ 20 million ($ 28 million). Another, against the Marriott hotel group, was reduced £ 99 million ($ 137 million) and £ 18 million ($ 25 million).

The fine of 746 million euros in the Amazon is much higher than anything before; He has a fine of 50 million euros against Google current record. Although the GDPR allows the issuance of potential fines, the reality was this they were hardly likely to be issued by regulators. By the beginning of 2021, a total of 272 million euros ($ 322 million) had been fined by the GDPR together with all European regulators, according to a study by the law firm. For peppers. The Italian data protection organization, which imposed fines of 69.3 million euros, has directed it. They are followed by Germany (69 million euros), France (54 million euros) and the United Kingdom (44 million euros).