EU charges Facebook with giving 'misleading' information over WhatsApp

Social network could face fine of up to 1% of global turnover in 2014 prompted by privacy policy change for WhatsApp that shared user data with Facebook

The European commission (EC) has filed charges against Facebook for providing "misleading" information in the run-up to the social network's acquisition of messaging service WhatsApp after its data-sharing change in August.

The charges will not have an affect on the approval of the $22bn merger and is being treated completely separately to other European cases against Facebook, but could lead to Facebook being fined up to 1% of its global turnover in 2014 when the merger was approved, which was greater than $10bn for the first time.