Meta won’t quit Europe despite data transfer row

Facebook parent company Meta has said that it won’t pull its services from Europe, despite an ongoing row over transferring European data to the United States.

Data is very important to Meta’s advertisement business, and the frameworks that transfer said data through countries are currently non-functional.

"We have absolutely no desire and no plans to withdraw from Europe, but the simple reality is that Meta, and many other businesses, organisations and services, rely on data transfers between the EU and the US in order to operate global services," the firm said in a statement.

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The US and EU’s Privacy Shield online data sharing arrangement was invalidated by a top European court, and has left many global tech businesses in lurch.

Meta had earlier wrote in its Securities and Exchange Commission filing that “If a new transatlantic data transfer framework is not adopted... we will likely be unable to offer a number of our most significant products and services, including Facebook and Instagram, in Europe.”

Meta recently saw a US-record drop in market value after an earnings call that reported Facebook’s first-ever drop in global user base.