<Anchor> The
Personal Information Protection Committee imposed a fine of 100 billion won on Google and Facebook.
It is that the user did not go through a clear consent process while providing 'customized advertisements' by collecting the user's browsing history on other sites or using the app.
The Facebook operator Meta and Google reacted immediately.
Correspondent Jeong Seong-jin.
<Reporter>
A 'customized advertisement' that shows my interests as they are.
How did you know, it makes me feel afraid.
[Kim Bum-gi / Ansan-si, Gyeonggi-do: It's a little scary.
Anyway, you're taking my personal information.
It feels like they're watching everything I'm doing...
.]
Google and Meta collect information about what users search for or use, not only on their own apps, but also on other websites and apps to create personalized ads.
On Facebook and Instagram, 98% of meta users and 82% of Google users consented to data collection.
The question is whether users know exactly and consented to the collection of information.
The Personal Information Protection Commission, which has been investigating this for over a year, has concluded that explicit consent has not been obtained in advance.
Google did not clearly inform the collection of information and set the default to consent while hiding the settings screen and so on.
Meta put provisions in the full text of the data policy, which is several dozen A4 pages, making it difficult to recognize at a glance.
The fact that Google provides manual customization related to customized advertisements when signing up for membership in Europe was also suggested as the basis for the poor consent process in Korea.
The Personal Information Commission imposed a fine of 69.2 billion won on Google and 30.8 billion won on Meta, along with notifying users exactly and obtaining consent again.
Google and Meta said they had taken a legal consent process and even foretold legal action.