Facebook fined US$5B for privacy violations

Published Wednesday, July 24, 2019 9:25AM EDTWASHINGTON -- Federal regulators have fined Facebook $5 billion for privacy violations and are instituting new oversight and restrictions on its business. But they are only holding CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally responsible in a limited fashion.

"The magnitude of the $5 billion penalty and sweeping conduct relief are unprecedented in the history of the FTC," Joe Simons, the chairman of the FTC, said in a statement. He added that the new restrictions are designed "to change Facebook's entire privacy culture to decrease the likelihood of continued violations."Two of the five commissioners opposed the settlement and said they would have preferred litigation to seek tougher penalties.

The agency is also suing Cambridge Analytica over the privacy violations and has settled with its former CEO Alexander Nix and an outside researcher, Aleksandr Kogan, who developed the Facebook app that harvested tens of millions of people's personal information. Cambridge Analytica filed for bankruptcy and hasn't settled the allegations, but Kogan and Nix have agreed to restrictions on how they conduct business in the future.

"The proposed settlement does little to change the business model or practices that led to the recidivism," wrote Commissioner Rohit Chopra in his dissenting statement. He noted that the settlement imposes "no meaningful changes" to the company's structure or business model. "Nor does it include any restrictions on the company's mass surveillance or advertising tactics," he wrote.

But despite the record fine and all the public flogging triggered by the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook is worth more than it was before the blowback began. The company's market value on Wednesday was hovering around $575 billion -- roughly $40 billion above where it stood before the news of the Cambridge abuses broke. Those gains make the $5 billion fine easier to swallow for Facebook and its shareholders.

Privacy advocates have pushed for the FTC to limit how Facebook can track users -- something that would likely cut into its advertising revenue, which relies on businesses being able to show users targeted ads based on their interests and behaviour. The FTC did not specify such restrictions on Facebook.

Source: News Formal (newsformal.com)

Like they are going to get it..

give money to social programs :)

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