Meta’s Trades application is not unveiled due to EU regulatory laws

The French news agency, quoting informed sources, announced that the Trades application (Threads), which was supposed to be unveiled worldwide on Thursday, July 15th, will not be available in 27 member countries of the European Union due to concerns regarding compliance with regulatory laws and the protection of private information of European Union users.

According to Aetna and quoted by Independent, Trades is an application that analysts call the new competitor of Twitter. The Meta platform operated under the name of Facebook until 2021. Digital technology experts say that Twitter will be the biggest challenge for Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter.

Since South African billionaire Musk bought Twitter from Jack Dorsey, hundreds of thousands of users have left the social media platform.

Elon Musk, the owner of Tesla and one of the three richest men in the world, bought the majority of Twitter shares in October 2022, paying $44 billion.

According to the new EU rules implemented by the efforts of Margaret Vestager, Commissioner for Economic and Digital Competition of the European Commission, the strictures to protect the private information of citizens have intensified in recent years.

In the description of the Trades application, it is written that the personal data of users, including their contact information and address, is used for advertising purposes.

Meta had previously violated EU laws and been fined in its other applications, including WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook.

A spokesperson for the Irish Data Protection Commission told the Dublin Independent on Wednesday that Meta had confirmed that the app would not be available in Europe at this time.

Meta’s headquarters is in Dublin, the capital of Ireland. Meta company officials have not responded to AFP’s questions in this regard.

Meta is one of seven companies that the European Union has made subject to the new data protection laws. Except for this company, Amazon and Apple also have to comply with the new EU rules from 2024.

In June 2023, Meta was fined $1.3 billion for violating European user privacy regulations. The $1.3 billion fine is the heaviest fine against a leading digital technology company since the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation came into force. The European Commission has asked the company to stop transferring personal data of European users to the United States by October.

Before Meta, the European Union fined Amazon 764 million euros in 2021 for not respecting competition rules.

Last month, Meta announced to the company’s European subscribers that their Facebook and Instagram accounts might be down for a while.

The Consumer Data Protection Commission in the Republic of Ireland has given Meta five months to pay a $1.3 billion fine.