Losses & profits. The Irish, who value their independence, also cultivate a pronounced taste for nostalgic ballads. This could be called: “I love you Europe, why are you harassing me? “ The island’s economic miracle owes a lot to the European Union (EU), which in turn demands a bit of discipline from these Dubliners easily rebellious. Europe, which already moderately appreciates the country’s fiscal generosity towards foreign multinationals, would particularly like the country to be a little more aggressive in respecting European rules on the protection of privacy. On pressure from other EU members, Ireland has just imposed a record fine of 225 million euros on WhatsApp for breach of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Local authorities had initially proposed to tax the company up to 50 million for not having sufficiently informed its users of the transfer of their data, such as their phone number, to its parent company, Facebook. But the gendarmes in other EU countries quickly made Ireland realize that this was largely insufficient. Under the European agreement, violations of the GDPR in Europe must in fact be dealt with in the country where the company is located, in consultation with other national regulators.
The message is now clear, the country must take responsibility for its choices. He will pay his fiscal largesse which makes him so welcoming to American capital, by instructing the trials under the watchful eye of his colleagues from the Old Continent. And as nearly thirty procedures targeting Google, Apple and other Facebooks, all installed on the island for their European activities, are still in the pipeline, the Irish regulator has not finished suffering.
One more warning
This story proves that Europe can impose its law in an area in which it has made a specialty, the regulation of digital giants. It had done the same in July, forcing the authorities of Luxembourg, another haven for light taxation, to impose a fine of 746 million euros on Amazon.
Faced with such a united front, and under the threat of sanctions that could represent 4% of their turnover, the big digital oligopolies are forced to review their copy. In the case of WhatsApp, this is one more warning, after the sling caused by the change in its privacy rules. Facebook, which is trying by all means to monetize the success of its subsidiary, would surely have appreciated another Irish ballad than the one we sing today from Brussels to Dublin.