Record fine: Amazon is said to pay 746 million euros for data protection violations

The Amazon logo on one of the Group's logistics centers

Photo: DENIS CHARLET / AFP

The Luxembourg data protection authority CNPD has imposed a fine of 746 million euros on Amazon.

The business news service Bloomberg first reported on the incident.

It is the highest public fine that has been imposed so far because of the General Data Protection Regulation.

According to Bloomberg, the reason for the fine is a complaint made by the French civil rights organization “La Quadrature du Net”, which it had filed against US companies Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook in 2018. As recently as May, the civil rights activists complained that their complaints were not being dealt with. La Quadrature Du Net did not even receive an acknowledgment of receipt from Luxembourg after the procedure was passed on by France in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation. Amazon has its European headquarters in Luxembourg.

More precise details of the violations that caused the fine are not yet known - unlike other supervisory authorities, the Luxembourg data protection supervisory authority CNPD is obliged to maintain secrecy in individual cases. However, Amazon itself confirmed the process as part of its quarterly report and emphasized there that there was nothing wrong with the allegations and that they plan to take action against the decision.

According to the General Data Protection Regulation, the responsible authorities can impose a fine of up to four percent of global sales on companies in particularly serious cases.

The authorities are now making use of this option.

It was only in December that French data protectionists ordered Amazon to pay a fine of 35 million euros in France.

Search engine group Google is even supposed to pay 100 million euros for its cookies.

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