Big Tech’s six highest fines

1. Meta $25 billion in 2026 by a New Mexico court in the United States
2. Meta up to $18 billion in 2026, settlement with 48 US states
3. Meta $5 billion in 2019 by the US Federal Trade Commission
4. Google €4.34 billion (reduced to 4.125) in 2018 by the European Commission
5. Google €2.95 billion in 2025 by the European Commission
6. Google €2.42 billion in 2017 by the European Commission

Meta takes the cake

Meta, the Silicon Valley giant behind Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has faced the largest tech fines in history so far. If you keep up to date with tech news, this probably won’t be surprising to you because Mark Zuckerberg’s company often makes headlines - be it for new features like Meta AI in WhatsApp, Meta Smart Glasses, or being found liable for illegally collecting health data of Flo app users.

1. $25 billion - A fine bigger than some countries’ GDP

In October, 2026, Meta was fined $25 billion by the U.S state New Mexico, this marks the Big Tech’s biggest penalty to date.

On October 21st, 2026, a judge in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay its biggest penalty ever - $25 billion - after a jury found Meta liable of misleading its users about the privacy of their data. In this case, the jury found over 43 million separate violations of New Mexico’s consumer protection law. The judge said that the statute would have supported a penalty of more that $210 billion but this was reduced to $25 billion. Meta has said it will appeal this.

This lawsuit was filed in 2021, after it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica harvested the personal data of up to 87 million Facebook users via a third-party app. New Mexico sued Meta for lying to its users about who had access to their data, as well as its handling of hate speech and misinformation posted on the social media platform.

Related: What Facebook knows about you

2. Up to $18 billion - settlement for offering addictive apps to teens

In August, 2026, Meta agreed to pay up to $18 billion in settlement fees for the claims that its had designed addictive features in Facebook and Instagram which harmed young teenagers.

On August 26, 2026, Meta agreed to pay up to $18 billion as a settlement with 48 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and three U.S. territories to settle the accusations that Meta purposefully designed addictive features in Facebook and Instagram which harm teenagers.

This marks Meta’s biggest payment for child safety litigation, and pending court approval, finalizes the lawsuit that was filed in 2023 accusing Meta of violating state consumer protection laws and federal children’s privacy law.

You can find more information here.

3. Cambridge Analytica - Facebook settled allegations by paying $5 billion

In 2019, Meta agreed to pay a $5 billion settlement and agreed to make changes to better protect its users privacy to settle allegations that it had deceived users about how their personal data was shard with third parties.

“We exploited Facebook to harvest millions of people’s profiles. And built models to exploit what we knew about them and target their inner demons”

said Christopher Wylie, a Cambridge Analytica employee.

In July 2019, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) gave Meta (at the time Facebook) a $5 billion civil penalty for violating a 2012 FTC privacy order, and for deceiving its users about how their personal data was shared with third-parties. Meta agreed to settle the allegations by paying the $5 billion penalty and agreed to implement compliance measures to better protect user privacy.

This fine is linked to the Cambridge Analytica scandal where Facebook admitted to mishandling the data of over 87 million Facebook users. Facebook users’ data was obtained by Cambridge Analytica - a political data analytics firm.

Back in 2014, Cambridge Analytica used an external app to get the personal data of over 87 million Facebook users. The data was obtained from a personality quiz called thisisyourdigitallife, and the quiz got the data of the users’ friends’ profiles too. In December 2025, Mark Zuckerberg’s company became aware of the data transfer but did not inform the affected users and the scandal only became public three years later in 2018.

This data helped Cambridge Analytica build psychological profiles of Facebook users, which was then used to target voters in political campaigns, for example the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

In addition to the $5 billion FTC penalty, Meta has had to pay other penalties in relation to Cambridge Analytica:

• Paid $725 million in 2022 to settle a U.S. class action over the data leak

• Agreed to pay $459 million to 46 U.S. states

• Ordered to pay $25 billion by a judge in New Mexico, United States

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What this comes down to: Greed!

If it’s free, you’re the product

We know that when a company relies on ad-revenue and is free to use like Google and Facebook, its users are tracked, and excessive amounts of personal data is collected. Because the more these companies know about you, the more money they can make.

How this works: You use Meta’s products like Facebook and Instagram for free, in return, it tracks what you do on its apps and collects your data, it sells this information to third-parties and advertizers and you receive advertisements when using its products.

For you to get an idea of just how much money Meta makes from advertising, in the EU and EEA Meta lets you either subscribe to use Instagram for €7.99/month to not see ads, or, you can use it for free, but with two options: allow Meta to use more personal data to show you personalised ads or see less-personalized ads but browse with ad breaks which you cannot skip.

This is a clear indication how much it is worth for Meta to get hold of your data to target you with personalized ads.

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Google’s worst fines

In 2018, Google removed the “Don’t be evil” phrase from the introduction preface in its Code of Conduct.

Google, the Silicon Valley tech giant which is most famous for Gmail and Google Search came from humble beginnings starting in a garage and boasting the motto “Don’t be evil”. But by today, it has expanded its product offerings and dominated the markets in search and web. And, like Meta, Google has faced numerous scandals and fines along the way.

Google €4.34 billion (reduced to €4.125 billion) in 2018 by the European Commission

In July, 2018, Google was fined €4.34 billion reduced to €4.125 for breaching antitrust rules and restricting competition.

In July 2018, the European Commission fined Google €4.34 billion for breaching antitrust rules and restricting competition - this is the biggest antitrust fine ever issued by the EU Commission.

In this case, Google was fined because the Commission found that the tech giant abused Android’s market dominance by requiring phone and tablet manufacturers to pre-install its Google Search app and Chrome browser as the condition for them to have access to the Play app store. Google also paid manufacturers and mobile operators to exclusively pre-install Google Search, and it didn’t let manufacturers sell any phones with forked versions of Android.

Google appealed this fine, and in 2022 the EU’s General Court reduced the fine to €4.125 billion. Then, Google appealed this case again but on July 2, 2026, the EU Court of Justice dismissed the final appeal.

Google €2.95 billion in 2025 by the European Commission

In September, 2025, the European Commission fined Google €2.95 billion for breaching its antitrust rules in the advertising technology industry.

In September, 2025, the European Commission fined Google €2.95 billion for breaching its antitrust rules in the advertising technology industry (adtech). The Commission found that Google breached its antitrust rules in the EU by favoring its own online display ad technology services - thus it abused its market dominance to unfairly limit other competing providers of adtech services, advertisers and publishers. The EU Commission has also ordered Google to stop the self-referencing of its own services and has warned that if it doesn’t, breaking up part of Google’s adtech business may be a solution. Google is appealing this.

Google €2.42 billion in 2017 by the European Commission

In 2017, the European Commission fined the tech giant €2.42 billion abusing the market dominance of its shopping comparison service.

The European Commission fined the tech giant €2.42 billion for abusing its market dominance of its shopping comparison service. Google appealed this fine, which at the time was its biggest fine the EU Commission had given.

This case started in 2009 when Founded, a British price-comparison site, complained that Google was making its own shopping recommendations appear more prominently than its rivals in search. Google tried to oppose this but the EU Commission agreed that the tech giant did win the monopoly on price comparison by preventing competitors to get a foothold in the market.

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Don’t be fooled by privacy washing

For Meta and Google, these fines and settlements are nothing but a slap on the wrist in terms of money.

The bigger risk for them is:

• Being restricted in how they do business: For example, having limits on how they can collect and process your data would hurt them much more because this would ultimately lead to a much bigger financial loss than a fine.

• Public perception: How you, the user, perceive them. This is why privacy washing is a core marketing strategy for Big Techs.

Big Techs love to sell privacy, but privacy has never been a priority for them. Google wants you to think its products are private but this is often not the case. For example, if you use Gmail, your emails are already being scanned, and with the development of AI, Google even made an update that allowed Gemini AI access on your Android device - even if you previously turned Gemini App activity off. Similar to that, you also can’t turn off Meta AI on WhatsApp.

A call for change

These top six big tech fines we covered today do not have huge impacts on Meta or Google and how these tech giant do business because the earnings they make from not adhering to legislation are just so high. Yes, it’s still a good thing that they are being held accountable for their unethical practices - like New Mexico ordering Meta’s biggest-ever fine, and the European Commission holding Google accountable for its unfair business practices within the EU. But as long as people continue to support and use these products, these companies will continue to operate like this.

This is why we as consumers need to actively change how we consume and use tech. The positive news is that this is already happening around the world, for example people are actively choosing to DeGoogle and support smaller more ethical tech providers.