The European Union has fined linkedin more than 300 million euros for violating rules on user data

The European Union's data privacy watchdog has fined linkedin, a workplace social network owned by Microsoft, more than 300 million euros for violating rules on users' personal data.

The European Union's Data Protection Commission, based in Ireland, on Thursday fined LinkedIn a hefty 310 million euros, saying the platform's consent to users' personal data for targeted advertising was not voluntary.

The Data Protection Commission asked linkedin to comply with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation, introduced in 2018, to protect European consumers from personal data breaches. "The processing of personal data without a proper legal basis is a clear and serious violation of data subjects' fundamental data protection rights," said Graham Doyle, the commission's director of communications.

This is the first time that linkedin has been fined by the EU. In its statement Thursday, linkedin said it has always complied with the General Data Protection Regulation, but also said it is working to ensure its practices are in line with European Union regulations.

In recent years, regulators around the world, including the European Union, have been trying to regulate the behavior of tech giants in areas such as data protection, disinformation, taxation and more. Ireland is home to the European headquarters of tech giants such as Microsoft, Apple, Google and Facebook parent Meta, and the Data Protection Commission has imposed large fines on a number of tech companies before linkedin.

In September, the Data Protection Commission fined Meta €91 million for failing to put in place appropriate security measures to protect users' password data and for taking too long to report problems to the Commission.