Facebook fined 150,000 euros by French data watchdog

Paris: Facebook has been fined 150,000 euros ($165,645) by France`s CNIL data watchdog for failure to prevent its users` data from being accessed by advertisers.

CNIL said its fine - which was imposed on both Facebook Inc and Facebook Ireland - was part of a wider European probe also being carried out in Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Germany into some of Facebook`s practices.

The 150,000 euros fine is small in the context of the company which has quarterly revenue of about $8 billion and a stock market capitalisation which stands at around $435 billion.