Facebook is accused by the European Commission of having lied when it explained how it will retrieve the data of WhatsApp users in order to use them in the display of advertisements. European authorities are threatening the Facebook company with fines that could reach up to 1% of the company's total revenues on the European continent, the amount being a significant one.
In 2014, when it bought WhatsApp, Facebook promised not to interconnect the user accounts of the two networks for the same person. Well, this promise was broken this summer, when Facebook said it would take the data of WhatsApp users and combine it with that of Facebook to better display ads within its network.
The European Commission accuses Facebook of having deceived it when it made the initial promise, but also that then it could have interconnected these accounts, without telling anyone. The accusations are serious because they question what Facebook would have done in 2014 without notifying its users, the action being identical to the one the company did this summer.
The European Commission will want to extract as much money as possible from Facebook for breaking the promises made then, but the purchase cannot be canceled now. However, Facebook has upset many users with the change of attitude regarding the existing data in WhatsApp and risks exposing itself even more in such a dispute with the European Commission.
"In today's Statement of Objection, the Commission takes the preliminary view that, contrary to Facebook's statements and reply during the merger review, the technical possibility of automatically matching Facebook users' IDs with WhatsApp users' IDs already existed in 2014."
