The European authorities have fined Facebook with 110 million Euros for misleading information during an analysis for the purchase of WhatsApp messaging service in 2014, according to Reuters. The investigations by the european union about Facebook resulted in the company being fined with a huge amount of money.

Fined for linking Facebook's and WhatsApp's users' identities

The European Commission — which acts as an arbitrator for competition in the European Union — claims it has applied a proportionate and discouraging fine, given Facebook's actions.

Facebook stated it would not link its users' accounts to WhatsApp's accounts, but they did this two years after they took over WhatsApp.

The European Commission found that the technical possibility of linking the Facebook and WhatsApp users' identities existed since 2014, and the company's employees were aware of this possibility. This contradicts the company's statements made in 2014.

Facebook provided a press release where they showed that the errors from 2014 were not intentional. The company also said the European Commission confirmed that this issue didn't affect the process of taking over the company WhatsApp.

The fine doesn't affect Facebook's takeover of WhatsApp

The fine given by the European Commission to Facebook is a large one.

The social network has to pay 110 million Euros. However, this fine does not affect the European Commission's decisions related to the purchase of WhatsApp by Facebook. Moreover, it has nothing to do with other ongoing investigations. According to the European Commission, there are also some separate investigations about Facebook regarding some data protection issues.

The Commission had the right to fine Facebook with up to 1% of the company's 2016 turnover, which means $276 million. However, the fine was reduced because Facebook cooperated in the investigation and admitted the mistakes they made.

The last fine received by Facebook was $150,000

The European Union sanction comes just two days after Facebook received a $150,000 fine in France because they did not prevent advertisers who use the website from accessing users' personal data.

Also, the antitrust authorities in Italy fined WhatsApp 3 million Euros a week ago on the grounds that they forced their users to accept the fact that their personal data will be distributed to Facebook, according to Reuters.