The social media giant Facebook faces a massive €100 million fine in Belgium. At the end of last week, a Belgian court found Facebook guilty of illegally obtaining users' personal information by not sufficiently informing users about how Facebook tracked them across the internet. Facebook tracks which websites people visit online, even when they are not logged in to Facebook, using cookies, pixels and Facebook “Like” buttons which are placed on many websites. It uses this information to target adverts at the most appropriate users. The court told Facebook that it must now stop tracking users in Belgium, or face the €100 million fine. This is not the first time Facebook has found itself in trouble in recent times. In the US, it is coming under intense scrutiny for its involvement in the dissemination of fake news in the run up to the US 2016 Presidential election. In Europe, the concerns focus around privacy and the social network's handling of personal data. This latest ruling from the Belgian court comes just one month after Germany declared that it may consider banning Facebook from gathering third-party user data.
