Facebook could face a multi-billion fine from the FTC for violation of privacy

Facebook and officials of the Federal Trade Commission are currently negotiating a multi-billion dollar fine in order to put an end to the agency's investigation into the company's previous protection practices. of privacy, according to the same source. The Washington Post. That would be the biggest penalty the FTC ever imposed on a technology company. But according to the To post, the specific amount of the fine remains to be determined.

At the moment, the biggest penalty ever imposed by the FTC was a $ 22.5 million fine on Google in 2012, after regulators determined that the search giant had tracked users of the Apple's Safari web browser after explicitly stating that this would not be the case.

In the same year, Facebook signed a consent decree with the FTC, agreeing to no longer deceive its users by telling them that certain information from their profiles would remain confidential. The fees would likely be the result of infractions such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the company would have been deemed negligent in its monitoring of the means used by third-party applications to access user data on the platform. In the case of Cambridge Analytica, about 87 million users had access to their personal information by the policy consulting firm after they were collected by an application maker, then packaged and sold.

The FTC opened its Facebook inquiry for the first time last March after the Cambridge Analytica violation and other subsequent violations, such as a hacker who could have accessed data from 29 million accounts in the following months . If Facebook and the FTC fail to reach a deal on the fine, the agency could choose to sue Facebook for its past negligence in user privacy.

Last month, the Washington Post reported that the FTC could claim a fine in excess of $ 22 million that it has imposed on Google for Facebook, but privacy and civil rights advocates have said that nothing would serve to persuade the US government to do so. Huge social networking company to correct its behavior. Organizations such as the Open Market Institute and Color of Change have written to the FTC asking it to bring the fine to at least $ 2 billion.

According to this new report, they could realize their wish. It is unclear whether the FTC would ask Facebook to divest its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp as part of this deal. It is likely that Facebook would refuse to do so, which would lead to a lengthy court process.