Read the Facebook Marketing Manager's note to the agency's partners regarding the $ 5 billion record fine imposed by the FTC – Adweek

After CEO Mark Zuckerberg and General Counsel Colin Stretch confirmed the record fine in a personal article and an article on Facebook Newsroom, respectively, VP of Global Marketing, Carolyn Everson sent a memo to all the major holding groups describing the measures that his company intends to take to remedy the situation. the future, including the promotion of new leaders focused on the protection of privacy.

Adweek has acquired copies of the memo from three separate sources, each of which confirms its authenticity. A Facebook spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment.

"As you may have seen, we formally entered into an agreement with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) which establishes a new comprehensive framework for the protection of the privacy of individuals", Everson writes, adding that the FTC's decision "will require a fundamental change in the way we approach our work. "

At the same time, although Everson wrote that Facebook "will reinforce both the confidentiality requirements we must meet and the level of oversight we will have over our privacy practices," she also sought to rebadure its agency partners that their customers' Facebook relationships will not be fundamentally threatened.

Part of the language included in the memo is identical to that of the version of Stretch. The two said Facebook will set up an independent board headed by its own "privacy badessor", who will work to "monitor how we handle privacy issues and ensure we meet our commitments." This evaluator will regularly inform the council itself. and the federal government.

"Managers throughout the company will have to certify that they respect these confidentiality requirements in all the work they oversee," Everson continued, adding that Zuckerberg would personally call all these certifications. Without specifying the details, she also wrote that Facebook would adopt "stricter processes for identifying privacy risks" and document these risks and their responses in more detail.

She also announced new roles for three leaders, who will now focus on privacy issues. Michel Protti, former Vice President of Product Marketing for Partnerships, will become the company's Privacy Officer for Product pending approval from Facebook's board of directors. Vice President of Infrastructure, Delfina Eberly, has also been promoted responsible for auditing and overseeing privacy protection programs. Vice President of Engineering, Vladimir Fedorov, who has been running the company for more than ten years, will manage the privacy reviews within his product and engineering teams.

Everson concluded his note by stating that privacy protection "is already important" for the platform, that the new approach would surpbad existing US laws and that it would apply worldwide, even if the agreement strictly comes on the orders of the US federal government.

"Thank you as always for your ongoing partnership," she concluded before reprinting the entire story of Stretch's Newsroom. The complete memo is below.

Dear all,

As you have seen, we have formally entered into an agreement with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which establishes a comprehensive new framework for the protection of privacy. As part of this settlement, we agreed to pay a $ 5 billion fine and the College will require a fundamental change in the way we approach our work. It builds on our current approach by strengthening both the confidentiality requirements we must meet and the level of oversight we will have on our privacy practices. This also creates extra responsibility for the people who build our products at all levels of the company.

It means:

• • Establishment of an independent council who will monitor how we handle privacy issues and make sure we meet our commitments. An independent privacy reviewer will review the privacy program on an ongoing basis and report its findings to the government and the board.
  • Report regularly on our progress. Managers throughout the company will have to certify that they respect these confidentiality requirements in all the work they oversee. This will include Mark, who will sign his name to verify that we have done what we promised. The order also includes new requirements to report certain violations of our terms. In the future, if we verify that certain data, in violation of our Terms, have been accessed, collected, used or incorrectly shared by third parties, we will need to report the incident to the FTC.
  • We have moved three executives from their current roles to full-time privacy, and we are hiring hundreds of people to work with them.
    o Michel Protti, whom many of you know, will be stepping down from his role as Vice President of Product Marketing for Partnerships and will become our Product Privacy Officer, awaiting Board approval.
    o Delfina Eberly, currently vice president of infrastructure, will now lead privacy protection programs Audit and Oversight
    o Vladimir Fedorov, currently vice president of engineering and leader at FB for more than 10 years, will lead the review of confidentiality in all product and engineering teams.
  • Strict process identify the risks of invasion of privacy, more documentation of these risks and more drastic measures to ensure we meet these new requirements.

Privacy was already important to us. These new controls add a level of rigor that reflects financial controls and compliance. The responsibility required by this agreement exceeds the law in force and we hope to be a model for the industry. Although this is an order from a US agency, many of these changes will apply globally.

I am confident that these new actions, in addition to the changes already made, will continue to strengthen us as a business and help us better serve our community by ensuring that the work we do meets the expectations of individuals and individuals. enterprises. we.

Thank you as always for your ongoing partnership.

Carolyn