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Norway threatens Facebook owner Meta with substantial daily fines

Norway's data protection agency said Monday it would ban Facebook and Instagram owner Meta from using the personal information of users for targeted advertising, threatening a $100,000 daily fine if it continues.

Published: 17 July 2023 14:56 CEST

Pictured are visitors at a Meta event

Visitors stand in front of a Meta logo during a launch event at the corporate offices of Meta in Berlin on June 6, 2023. (Photo by Tobias SCHWARZ / AFP)

The business practices of US big tech firms are under close scrutiny across Europe over concerns about privacy, with huge fines handed out in recent years.

The Norwegian watchdog, Datatilsynet, said Meta uses information such as the location of users, the content they like and their posts for marketing purposes.

“The Norwegian Data Protection Authority considers that the practice of Meta is illegal and is therefore imposing a temporary ban of behavioural advertising on Facebook and Instagram,” it said in a statement.

The ban will begin on August 4th and last three months to give Meta time to take corrective measures. The company will be fined one million kroner ($100,000) per day if it fails to comply.

Meta spokesman Matthew Pollard was quoted as saying by Norwegian public radio channel NRK that the company will review the demands and that the announcement will not have an immediate effect on its activities.

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Norwegian police charge Olympic champion's father for domestic violence

Jakob Ingebrigtsen and two of his brothers, Henrik and Filip, who are also athletes, shocked Norway last October when they accused their father of being violent.

“We grew up with a very aggressive and authoritarian father, who used physical violence and threats as part of his upbringing,” the brothers wrote in an op-ed for newspaper VG. “We still feel a sense of discomfort and fear that we have felt since childhood,” they added.

Police opened a probe into the abuse claims and on Monday said prosecutors had decided to charge Gjert Ingebrigtsen, 58, with domestic violence against one of his children.

According to a source close to the case, the acts in question do not concern the trio of known athletes but another, younger child.

Over a period of four years, from 2018 to 2022, Gjert Ingebrigtsen allegedly manhandled, insulted, threatened and hit the child in the face with his hand or with a towel.

Responding to questions from AFP, Therese Braut Vage, who led the investigation, would not confirm this account.

Police said they had closed investigations into other events concerning the six other children in the home either due to a lack of evidence or, in one case, because the statute of limitations having expired.

Gjert, who coached Jakob until after the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo — where Jakob won the gold — has always denied the accusations against him.

“As far as the dismissed cases, we agree that there is no evidence to prove that Ingebrigtsen committed any wrongdoing,” his lawyer John Christian Elden told AFP on Monday.

“For the rest, Ingebrigtsen disputes the description of the facts on which the indictment is based — and he therefore does not admit his guilt,” he continued in an email.

Jakob Ingebrigtsen is the most successful of the three brothers, twice winning gold in the world championships 5000m in 2022 and 2023, as well as the Olympic 1500m gold.

The 23-year-old is also preparing for the Olympic Games in Paris this summer.

Henrik, 33, and Filip, 31, were European champions in the 1500m in 2012 and 2016 respectively.

After breaking with his sons, Gjert Ingebrigtsen shocked Norwegian athletics by becoming the trainer of another runner, Narve Gilje Nordas.

The Norwegian Olympic Committee has said that Gjert will not be granted accreditation for the Olympic Games in Paris this summer, as was the case at last year’s World Athletics Championships.

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