Court shoots down €746m 'flawed' Amazon GDPR fine

A Luxembourg court has thrown out Amazon’s €746m (£644m) GDPR fine – the second highest penalty ever issued – after ruling that the data protection regulator’s decision was flawed and ordering it to reassess the case from scratch.

Originally issued in July 2021 by Luxembourg’s National Commission for Data Protection, the case followed a complaint filed by 10,000 people against Amazon in May 2018, through a French privacy rights group La Quadrature du Net.

The complaint alleged that Amazon’s personalised advertising system did not rely on free user consent. The case raised more than a few eyebrows; at the time, the CNPD had only issued four fines under GDPR, totalling just €7,900 (£6,790).

Amazon had previously lost an initial appeal at a lower administrative tribunal in March 2025 before successfully winning this latest appeal.

The higher court has now ruled that the CNPD failed to properly assess whether Amazon’s alleged breaches were intentional or negligent before imposing the penalty.

While the fine was scrapped, the court largely upheld the regulator’s findings that Amazon’s targeted advertising practices lacked a valid legal basis under GDPR and that its privacy notices were non-compliant.

The matter has been referred back to the CNPD for a fresh review. The regulator must now conduct a new analysis to determine if a fine is appropriate and, if so, what the amount should be.

Amazon said in a statement: “We strongly disagreed with the initial ruling and disproportionate fine that had originally been issued in this case, which is why we appealed.”

However, a CNPD spokesperson said its action “has ⁠led to Amazon’s practices being brought into full compliance with the relevant provisions of the case regarding online behavioural advertising”.

Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram owner Meta has the dubious honour of holding the record for the largest fine under GDPR, having been whacked with a €1.2bn (£1bn) penalty in May 2023. It is also appealing that decision.