COMPANY PROFILE

Meta

Headquarters: Menlo Park, United States · Listed: NASDAQ: META

14 fines or sanctions2 data breaches

What it does and how it makes money

Meta Platforms runs the Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp apps, used by people and businesses, and develops virtual and augmented reality devices (Reality Labs).

Almost all of its revenue comes from advertising: USD 196,175 million of 200,966 million in 2025. ^[1]

What data it collects about you

Its privacy policy covers Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and other products. According to the Irish regulator (DPC) it uses users' data for personalised advertising, and according to Texas it ran facial recognition on photos uploaded to Facebook for more than a decade. ^[2]

How it turns your data into money

Meta collects your activity and what you post, your friends and connections, app, browser and device data, and information from partners, vendors and third parties. It uses this for a personalised experience, including ads: its ad system ranks which ad to show you based on the audience the advertiser wants to reach. It also uses information advertisers and partners send about your activity off Meta's products to personalise ads, and gives advertisers measurements of ad effectiveness. If you look at sneakers in an online store that uses Meta tools, you may see that product advertised on Instagram; Meta states it does not sell your information to anyone. ^[2]

Where it is incorporated

Meta Platforms, Inc. (formerly Facebook, Inc.), a Delaware corporation with principal offices at 1 Meta Way, Menlo Park, California; in 2023 advertising accounted for 97.8% of its revenue. ^[3]

Taxes and low-tax countries

According to its 2025 annual report, Meta is litigating with the IRS over transfer pricing for the intellectual property transferred in 2010 to its international subsidiary (Facebook Ireland, now Meta Platforms Ireland): on May 22, 2025 the U.S. Tax Court valued that property at $7.79 billion, $1.48 billion more than reported. In September 2025 the IRS also asserted $15.89 billion in additional tax, plus interest and penalties, for 2017-2019, mostly over the same transaction; Meta disputes the notice in its entirety. ^[3]

Competition and monopoly

On November 13, 2024 the European Commission fined Meta €797.72 million for abusing its dominant position in personal social networks (Art. 102 TFEU) by tying Facebook Marketplace to Facebook and imposing unfair trading conditions on rival classified-ads services. In the U.S., on November 18, 2025 Judge James Boasberg rejected the FTC's case against the Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions as no monopoly was proven; in January 2026 the FTC filed an appeal to the D.C. Circuit. In addition, on April 22, 2025 the Commission fined Meta €200 million for breaching the Digital Markets Act with its 'consent or pay' model. ^[4]

Money

200,966 million USDRevenue 2025 ^[1]

60,458 million USDNet income 2025 ^[1]

78,865Employees (2025) ^[1]

Fines and sanctions

In total: 3,907.2 million EUR + 6,400 million USD

Comisión Europea · European Union · April 2025200 million EUR
Digital Markets Act (DMA): its 'consent or pay' model offered no equivalent option using less personal data and did not let users freely consent to combining their data. ^[5]
DPC (Irlanda) · Ireland · December 17, 2024251 million EUR
GDPR: incomplete breach notification and lack of data protection by design and by default related to the 2018 breach affecting about 29 million Facebook accounts. ^[6]
Comisión Europea · European Union · November 2024797.7 million EUR
Antitrust: tying Facebook Marketplace to the Facebook social network and imposing unfair trading conditions on other online classified ads services. ^[7]
DPC (Irlanda) · Ireland · September 27, 202491 million EUR
GDPR: storing user passwords in plaintext, without encryption, on internal systems, and failing to notify and document the breach. ^[8]
Fiscal General de Texas · United States · July 30, 20241,400 million USD
Settlement with the Texas Attorney General over running facial recognition on photos uploaded to Facebook and capturing biometric data without notice or consent (CUBI Act). Paid over five years. ^[9]
DPC (Irlanda) · Ireland · May 22, 20231,200 million EUR
GDPR: transferring EU Facebook users' personal data to the United States in breach of international transfer rules. ^[10]
DPC (Irlanda) · Ireland · January 19, 20235.5 million EUR
GDPR: breaches by WhatsApp Ireland relating to the legal basis and transparency of data processing in its service. ^[11]
DPC (Irlanda) · Ireland · January 4, 2023390 million EUR
GDPR: relying on contract as an invalid legal basis to process data for personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram, and lack of transparency. ^[10]
DPC (Irlanda) · Ireland · November 28, 2022265 million EUR
GDPR: data protection by design and by default failures that allowed data of about 530 million Facebook users to be scraped and posted online. ^[12]
DPC (Irlanda) · Ireland · September 2, 2022405 million EUR
GDPR: handling of children's data on Instagram (profile and account settings for children). ^[13]
DPC (Irlanda) · Ireland · March 202217 million EUR
GDPR: failing to demonstrate the security measures used in twelve data breaches notified in 2018. ^[14]
CNIL · France · December 31, 202160 million EUR
Making it harder to refuse cookies than to accept them on Facebook. ^[15]
DPC (Irlanda) · Ireland · September 2021225 million EUR
GDPR: WhatsApp did not make clear to users how their data was processed (transparency failures). ^[10]
FTC · United States · July 24, 20195,000 million USD
Settlement with the FTC for violating a 2012 order by deceiving users about their privacy controls, including sharing friends' data with app developers; includes new restrictions. These are the FTC's allegations, resolved by settlement. ^[16]

Data breaches and hacks

September 201829,000,000 people affected
Attackers exploited a bug that generated access tokens to Facebook profiles: name, email, phone number, location, workplace, date of birth, religion, gender, timeline posts and groups. ^[6]
April 201887,000,000 people affected
Facebook disclosed that data on up to 87 million people was improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica through a researcher's app. ^[17]

Ask it to delete your data

With GUARDIANA or GUARDIANA ZERO, you download from this same profile the letter asking it to delete your data, under your country’s law, ready to attach to an email.

Its website

https://www.meta.com/

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Sources

What this profile does NOT say

It does not say this company does anything illegal. The only thing it states about anyone’s legality is what a regulator or a court has already decided, with the date and the link to the source.
It does not say what data of yours it holds: only the company knows, which is why you have the right to ask it.
If you are this company and a fact is wrong, write to hola@guardianagroup.com and it will be corrected, with its date.

Public facts with their sources, checked on October 12, 2026. All profiles →