Monsanto Fined For Illegally Keeping Tabs on Politicians, Media
- Company fined $472,000 for tracking and ranking 200 people
- List ranked journalists and politicians by influence
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Bayer AG’s Monsanto was fined 400,000 euros ($473,000) for violating French data protection rules by keeping tabs on more than 200 people, including politicians and journalists it was looking for help to lobby in its favor in European debates on pesticides and genetically-modified organisms.
Monsanto stored personal data of each person on its list and ranked them according to their credibility and ability to influence public debate over controversial decisions, without informing them, French privacy regulator CNIL said on Wednesday. This included measures such as the controversy over the renewal of European authorization of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s weedkiller Roundup.