FTC officially announces it’s slapping Facebook with a $5 billion fine

The United States of America Federal Trade Commission officially said today it’s leveling a $5 billion fine against Facebook less than 2 weeks later The Wall Street Journal first reported on the fine.

A few days ago, reports alleged the fine would live on approved, amongst the Justice Department together with the FTC’s commissioners voting 3-2 inwards favor of the penalty. CNBC reported this forenoon that the fine is official. The amount amounts to well-nigh nine percentage of Facebook’s 2018 revenue, for those wondering. The SEC also announced today that Facebook volition pay a split $100 ane M m fine for misleading investors well-nigh the risks of misused user data, the written report added.

This is basically a 20-year short town that volition end the FTC probe into Facebook’s widely reported privacy violations together with the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The FTC began probing Facebook inwards March 2018 next reports that political consulting draw solid Cambridge Analytica had improperly accessed the information of 87 ane M m Facebook users.

As business office of the deal, Facebook volition create an independent privacy commission on its board to trim back co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s “unfettered control” over user privacy decisions.

The members volition live on nominated past times an independent nominating commission together with tin only live on fired past times a two-thirds of voting shares, which would preclude Zuckerberg from controlling the vote amongst his part power. Zuckerberg volition also stimulate got on novel responsibilities to ensure compliance amongst the order, according to the announcement. Zuckerberg was non questioned past times the FTC every bit business office of the probe.

And:

Outside of Facebook, an independent third-party assessor approved past times the FTC volition send biennial assessments together with written report to the novel privacy commission quarterly. Facebook must notify the assessor inside xxx days of discovering that information of 500 or to a greater extent than users has been compromised, according to the release.

Even though this is the largest-ever fine imposed past times the FTC against a tech company, around commenters experience this is peanuts for a companionship of Facebook’s size.

The Verge’s Nilay Patel, inwards an article titled “Facebook’s $5B FTC Fine is an Embarrassing Joke”:

The United States of America authorities spent months coming upward amongst a penalty for Facebook’s long listing of privacy-related bad behavior, together with the best it could produce was together with then weak that Facebook’s stock cost went up. […]From another perspectives, that $5 billion fine is a large deal, of course: it’s the biggest fine inwards FTC history, far bigger than the $22 ane M m fine levied against Google inwards 2012. And $5 billion is a lot of money, to live on sure.

It’s merely that similar everything else that comes into contact amongst Facebook’s scale, it’s however exclusively likewise small: Facebook had $15 billion inwards revenue concluding quarter alone, together with $22 billion inwards turn a profit concluding year.

And Daring Fireball’s John Gruber:

I’m however amongst Kara Swisher on this — add a cypher together with nosotros mightiness stimulate got a fine that volition alter Facebook. $5 billion is merely the cost of doing business.

What’s your take?

Should the FTC stimulate got fined Facebook $10 billion or to a greater extent than inwards society to live on taken seriously?

Let us know past times leaving a comment below.

Share this post