Privacy Group EPIC suing the FTC for a $ 5 billion Facebook settlement



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A consumer privacy group is suing the Federal Trade Commission in court for the $ 5 billion settlement announced by Facebook last week. According to the EPIC, the regulation clears the slate of the social media company despite years of privacy breach. ( Simon Steinberger | pixabay )

Electronic Privacy Information Center is not satisfied with the decision of the Federal Trade Commission to impose on Facebook a $ 5 billion fine for years of privacy violation.

The Washington-based consumer privacy advocacy group is asking a federal court to intervene in the settlement. The FTC officially announced Wednesday, July 24th the $ 5 billion fine – the second largest fine imposed by the agency – on Wednesday, July 24.

The settlement was the culmination of a lengthy investigation into privacy breaches, including the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which collected data from 87 million profiles on Facebook.

FTC becomes too easy on Facebook

EPIC stated that the regulation was not "adequate, reasonable or appropriate". The group said the regulation would extinguish 26,000 consumer complaints against the social media company currently pending at the FTC since 2011.

"The proposed order completely erases Facebook's slate without Facebook even having to admit its guilt for its privacy breaches," reads the complaint, which was reviewed by the New York Times .

The privacy group has also filed several complaints against Facebook for user privacy issues.

EPIC is also asking the court to see if the scope of the settlement can be extended to other issues, such as the bug detected in the Messenger Kids app that allowed users under age 13 to chat with adults or use widespread facial recognition without the consent of the user.

The protest was filed in federal court in Washington, DC on Friday, July 26. In addition to the $ 5 billion fine, the regulation also requires the $ 571 billion company to accept a series of new privacy restrictions.

Facebook unaffected after FTC settlement

Several other experts agreed that the FTC settlement was simply a pat on Facebook's fingers. As the Guardian noted, Facebook will only need 27 days to earn and pay $ 5 billion. The fine would not even make a dent.

Wednesday, after the official announcement of the settlement, the share price of Facebook jumped. The company also posted better-than-expected results for the second quarter, with $ 16.9 billion in revenue and user growth, despite security and privacy concerns .

"Privacy has always been important to the services we provide and is now even more central to our future vision of social networking," said Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. "It's essential to get it right, and we're going to integrate it into all our systems, it will take time to do it right, and I think we'll need more time to ship the new products." especially while we're getting that and operational. "

Facebook currently has 1.59 billion active users a day.

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