Italy fines Meta $887M over Android users' data access

It seems like every time Meta (Facebook) hits the front page of Hacker News it's for something negative.

How did they access users photos without consent? Did they run some exploit on Android to access the photo without showing the user the consent prompt? The article is really lacking in details.

> Finding the company had accessed Android users' photographs and videos without obtaining their consent or informing them.

> Users must grant permission on their device before the feature can operate, and they can change that permission at any time in their settings.

> The fine is equivalent to about 0.47% of the group's global revenue.

What is Italy protecting Italians from here? I think it's clear consent was given at some point. So the objection is what? They need to ask consent again periodically? Or on a feature-by-feature basis? Who was conceivably harmed, and how?

How does Meta accept user content in the future without running afoul of the exact same rule again?

Is there a running total of how much the EU and member states rake in through tech company fines per year? It has to be pretty high by now.

Edit: I see another commenter linked https://enforcementtracker.com/. Very useful resource

I have never seen any proof that they actually pay these.. Can someone enlighten me? (I would just ignore 'em... maybe I would get a strongly worded letter..)

Wait, they could see what we were doing inside our bedrooms, and they got away with a fine?

I don't think these fines are even making the slightest difference. Meta probably writes them off as the cost of doing business. As do other big tech companies.

Besides the fine itself (probably good news? Probably too little to matter? Unsure), the topic of Meta/Facebook being a menace to our lives is an ever important one to me, in relation to my family.

It is well known, and discussed, that young kids are particularly weak in relation to social media. Meta probably represents the strongest, "evilest" company in that regard.

What will we do, as a society, to make our lives better? Possibly without pitch forks.

They should be required to put a warning at the top of all future permission prompts explaining that meta has a history of lying about data use and violating privacy law.

did meta paid the fine?

Italy needs to get their own story right on top of criticizing others for privacy-invasions: https://osservatorionessuno.org/blog/2025/03/cellebrite-and-...

Coincidentally, in both cases of surveillance, GrapheneOS or iPhones would have prevented it.

So every time meta oversteps they just get a fine? So they will keep doing it

It's just cost of doing business with EU

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prepare for tariffs! /s

This value is nothing to they

They were fined almost a billion dollars over a UI feature where you select which photos to upload. The app itself doesn't actually access your camera roll randomly and upload your photos or anything.

Isn't the EU making more money from fining US tech companies than their own tech companies are paying in taxes at this point?

An elaborate ruse for taxes. The user consented but it wasn't enough. That'll be $1bn please.

This has basically just become a stealth tax at this point.

You can't raise VAT as that would be massively unpopular, so this is the next best option.

1: Fine tech bros for $reason and $amount must be in the billions

2: $business raises costs to cover the fine, now their AI is 50 cents more expensive per $x thousands of tokens

3: EU collects sweet money under the guise that tech bros are bad, and who would disagree?

4: go to step 1.

There are no other legitimate reasons to fine such an absurd amount and since the EU needs to find a way to stealth tax the population this is a great way to do it. You're not going to ban Facebook, and you're able to create endless reasons to fine them billions.

Don't believe me? Save this comment, check back in 2028, 2029 and 2030. I predict at least 10-15€ billion in fines for various reasons, which will obviously include privacy. You could probably even guess the date, amount and reason of fine it's become so predictable from the EU.