Top News: Bavarian DPA rules against the use of Mailchimp, Booking.com invites $560,000 GDPR fine
German Data Protection Authority rules against the use of Mailchimp
The Bavarian DPA ruled that a German company’s use of US-based Mailchimp’s email marketing service to send newsletters to its subscribers was impermissible under GDPR. It opined that Mailchimp may be considered an electronic communications service provider and is potentially subject to data access by US intelligence services. The ruling concluded that the transfer of email addresses to the US was illegal following the Schrems II judgment.
Facebook data of over 500 million users leaked
Personal information of more than 500 million Facebook users from 106 countries was published on a hacking forum for free. As reported by Business Insider, the exposed data includes individuals’ full names, locations, phone numbers, birthdates, bios, and, in some cases, email addresses.
LinkedIn facing probe over data sold on a hacking forum
LinkedIn is facing a probe from the Italian privacy watchdog after user data of over 500 million users was put up for sale on a hacking forum. The data, which includes full names, profile IDs, email addresses, and phone numbers, was scraped by hackers from publicly viewable information. Read more about it here.
Booking.com slapped with $560,000 GDPR fine for failing to report a data breach
Booking.com has been fined a sum of €475,000 ($560,000) by the Dutch Data Protection Authority (AP) for failing to report a data breach within 72 hours stipulated by GDPR. The breach had occurred in 2018 when the personal details of over 4100 customers were compromised. The company discovered the breach in January 2019 but failed to report it for 22 days. More details are available in the agency’s press release. The news follows similar penalties imposed by GDPR on Google, Amazon, H&M, etc., in the year 2020.
Malware-ridden Facebook ads planted to infect devices
Cybercriminals planted Facebook ads tied to several Facebook pages impersonating a Clubhouse app for PC. The fake Clubhouse websites that were hosted in Russia went offline overnight, and the malware, which intended to target user devices with ransomware, also stopped working. Read more about it here.
