The European Commission has charged Facebook with providing misleading information during its takeover of the online messaging service WhatsApp, opening the company to a possible fine of 1 per cent of its turnover.
The statement of objections sent to Facebook will not have an impact on the approval of the $22 billion merger in 2014, the Commission said in a statement on Tuesday.
Facebook becomes the latest Silicon Valley target of EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager, who has demanded Apple pay back $14 billion in taxes to Ireland and hit Google with two market abuse investigations.
The issue regards a WhatsApp privacy policy change in August when it said it would share some usersโ phone numbers with parent company Facebook, triggering investigations by a number of EU data protection authorities.
The Commission said Facebook had indicated in its notification of the planned acquisition that it would be unable reliably to match the two companiesโ user accounts.โ
โIn todayโs Statement of Objections, the Commission takes the preliminary view that, contrary to Facebookโs statements and reply during the merger review, the technical possibility of automatically matching Facebook usersโ IDs with WhatsApp usersโ IDs already existed in 2014,โ it said.
โThe Commissionโs preliminary view is that Facebook gave us incorrect or misleading information during the investigation into its acquisition of WhatsApp,โ said Vestager, the EUโs competition commissioner.
Facebook has until Jan 31 to respond. If the Commissionโs concerns are confirmed it can impose a fine on the US company of up to 1 per cent of turnover. Companies fined can appeal to the European Court of Justice, which has overturned some penalties in the past.
โWe respect the Commissionโs process and are confident that a full review of the facts will confirm Facebook has acted in good faith, a Facebook spokeswoman said.
โWeโve consistently provided accurate information about our technical capabilities and plans, including in submissions about the WhatsApp acquisition and in voluntary briefings before WhatsAppโs privacy policy update this year,โ she added.
The company will continue to cooperate and give the information officials need to resolve their questions, she said.
In response to separate concerns from EU data protection watchdogs Facebook has agreed to stop sharing WhatsApp usersโ information with Facebook for the purposes of improving Facebook products and advertising experiences.
The watchdogs wrote to the company last week asking for more information about the privacy policy change.
