AMAZON, this name needs no introduction and as it is the world’s largest online retailer that sells several things one can’t just make a list of it. Recently, Amazon has been suppressed under the massive fine of $886.6 million (746 million Euros) after a European Union data privacy regulator said the e-commerce giant had violated the bloc’s signature privacy law, i.e. GDPR.
The penalty has been imposed by Luxembourg National Commission for Data Protection (CNPD- Commission Nationale pour la Protection des Données. The decision of CNPD was imposed by penal was issued on July 15th, 2021 regarding Amazon Europe Core S.à r.l for the breach of cooperation mechanism as mentioned under Article 60 of GDPR.
Due to professionals secrecy as per article 42 of the National Law on data protection bind the CNPD to professional secrecy, additionally, the full and clear publication of the decisions of the CNPD is considered as a supplementary sanction under Article 52 hence, authority can not publish its full decision before the expiration of deadlines of Appeals. (read the Gazette here for Article 42 and 52 here –https://cnpd.public.lu/dam-assets/fr/legislation/droit-lux/Act-of-1-August-2018-on-the-organisation-of-the-National-Data-Protection-Commission-and-the-general-data-protection-framework.pdf)
The details of the fine was revealed by the e-commerce giant on July 19, 2021 while filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange (link here-https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001018724/000101872421000020/amzn-20210630.htm).
Further, to that Amazon clarified to various media that there has been no data breach and no customer data has been exposed to any third party, customer information had not been leaked or exposed. Amazon also said it believes the decision to be without merit, even Amazon added that “the decision relating to how we show customers relevant advertising relies on subjective and untested interpretations of European privacy law and the proposed fine is entirely out of proportion with even that interpretation”.
References- https://cnpd.public.lu
Picture Credit- https://www.clym.io