France fines Google $57 million for not disclosing data collection of user info

The French data protection authority fined Google 50 million Euros or about $57 million, for not properly disclosing to users how data is collected across its services, including its search engine, Google Maps and YouTube, in order to present personalized advertisements. This is the largest penalty to date under the European Union privacy law, The General Data Protection Regulation, that went into effect last May. Facebook is also the subject of a number of investigations by the data protection authorities in Europe.

Google said it was determining whether to appeal the decision.

In July of last year, Google was fined a record 4.3 billion euros ($5 billion/Œ£3.8 billion) on Wednesday by the European Union’s competition watchdog, which accused it of using its dominant position in the marketplace to quash competition. That fine was appealed.