Global e-commerce giant Amazon’s Turkey representative was fined TL 1.2 million ($152,122.32) after it was revealed that the site was unlawfully sharing users’ personal information.
The violation was revealed by Turkey’s Personal Data Protection Authority (KVKK) which later delivered the administrative fine.
The company objected to the fine; however, a court dismissed the objections following expert investigations and stood by the penalty decision.
The personal data was said to be transferred to the European Union and the United States without users’ consent.
There are several statements on the site, including: “Please review our Privacy Notice and Cookies Statement to understand how your personal information is collected and processed through Amazon Services under the ‘Terms of Use and Sales’ page of the site.” However, the KVKK report said the company violated the law by not fulfilling their obligation to properly inform users and that “explicit consent was made on the pre-condition of the use of services.”
In order to shop on Amazon you have to be a member of the site, which requires accepting the conditions. The obligatory member account made personal information open to sharing and does not fall under the category of “explicit consent” but rather reveals the pre-condition of the use of the services.
