Facebook fined $ 5 billion

Facebook fined $ 5 billion

Critics claim that an agreement reached with US regulators at Cambridge Analytica does not go far enough in the data privacy scandal

WASHINGTON: US authorities have approved a record $ 5 billion settlement with Facebook to solve the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal, sparking an uproar from lawmakers and privacy advocates who have said it does not matter. did not go far enough.

Although the details of the deal with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have not been announced, the fine is heavy but far from devastating for Facebook. The company, which has achieved a turnover of nearly $ 56 billion in 2018, said it has set aside $ 3 billion in anticipation of the fine.

"This $ 5 billion fine is barely a wrist shot, not even a slap," said Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, who called for a hearing on the deal. "Such a financial punishment for deliberate and blatant illegality is a radical change for a company that earns tens of billions of dollars every year."

The FTC settlement was approved by 3 votes to 2, according to two people who asked not to be named because they were not allowed to speak publicly about the decision. The agreement still needs to be approved by the US Department of Justice.

The resolution complements an investigation opened in March 2018 after Cambridge Analytica, a consulting firm hired by President Donald Trump's campaign, obtained user data from a researcher who created a quiz application on the personality on the social network.

The settlement marks the most important action ever taken against Facebook after a series of incidents that compromised user data and tipped society from one crisis to another. The two FTC Democratic commissioners, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Rohit Chopra, voted against, according to one source.

Slaughter, Chopra, Facebook and the FTC refused to comment.

The task of defending the settlement will fall to Joe Simons, President of the FTC, who has tried to avoid division of enforcement decisions as the head of the agency.

While Facebook has agreed to give its board the oversight of its privacy policies, CEO Mark Zuckerberg is the board member who controls with nearly 58% of the votes. The board also includes Facebook's other senior executive, Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer. Both already have power over the company's privacy policies.

Public interest groups, including Public Knowledge, Public Citizen and the Open Markets Institute, have said that any deal with the FTC should impose corrective measures that would limit Facebook's data collection practices in addition to a fine.

"Clearly something needs to be done to strengthen the data protection practices of this company," said Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, who filed a lawsuit against Facebook following the decree of 39; FTC authorization in 2011 from the social media company. who approached a litany of deceptive practices.

The NetChoice technology industry group has welcomed the fine, saying it would spur companies to improve their privacy practices.

The Cambridge Analytica incident stems from a personality quiz application offered to Facebook users by a researcher from the University of Cambridge. About 270,000 people downloaded the application, which allowed the researcher to access data on these people and their friends. The information was then sold to Cambridge Analytica.

Even as it resolves the FTC's privacy inquiry, Facebook still needs to undergo extensive regulatory scrutiny on a number of other fronts, including the prospect of a new antitrust investigation. of the FTC. Acquisitions of the Instagram photo sharing app and the company's WhatsApp messaging service will likely be the focus of concern.

Other leaky controls also appeared. Facebook has recognized that large technology companies like Amazon and Yahoo have extended access to users' personal data, exempting them from its usual privacy policies. And he collected call logs and SMS from phones running Google's Android system in 2015.

The company faces numerous other investigations, both in the United States and abroad, that could result in their own fines and, more importantly, possible limitations on data collection. This includes nearly a dozen Irish Data Protection Commissioner, who oversees the regulation of privacy in the European Union.