Amazon.com Inc could face a $425 million fine in Europe for allegedly violating privacy laws.
Luxembourgs data protection commission (Commission National pour la Protection des Donnes-CNDP) has proposed what could be the largest ever fine under EU privacy laws.
The Commission has circulated a draft decision sanctioning Amazons privacy practices and proposing the fine among the blocs 26 other national authorities, people familiar with the matter said.
Before the draft decision becomes final, it must effectively be agreed by other EU privacy regulators, a process that could take months and lead to substantive changes including a higher or lower fine.
The case relates to Amazons collection and use of individuals data and violations under the European Unions landmark data privacy rules known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The GDPR requires companies to seek peoples consent before using their personal data and if this rule is violated the companies will have to face steep fines.
The fine proposed by Luxembourg is equivalent to almost 0.1 % of Amazons $386 billion in global sales in 2020. As per the GDPR, a company can be fined up to 4% of its global sales revenue for the most severe infringement of the law. That means Amazon could face a maximum fine of $1.54 billion.
The draft decision ruling, as well as the scale of punishment, indicates a new wave of privacy enforcement against tech giants in Europe at a time where Silicon Valley behemoths are being scrutinized around the world.
The European Unions mounting privacy enforcement comes alongside increasing antitrust enforcement, with European and U.S regulators launching multiple cases against big tech companies. Irelands privacy regulator also said that it expects to make draft decisions in nearly half a dozen privacy cases involving big tech companies this year.
In December 2020, an Irish regulator fined Twitter over $500,000 under GDPR for a fault in its Android App that exposed certain users protected tweets.
Earlier this month, the French anti-competition authority (Autorit de la concurrence) decided to fine Google 20 million ($268 million) for abusing its dominant position in the online advertising business.
