The US Federal Trades Commission (FTC) will impose a fine of $5 billion on Facebook for violating a decree governing privacy breaches, stemming from the Cambridge Analytics scandal, the Wall Street Journal reported. This is largest penalty the FTC has imposed against a technology company; its second largest fine was a mere $23 million on Google in 2012. Even so, the penalty will hardly make a dent in Facebook's business — as many others have highlighted. Facebook made $15 billion in revenue and $2.4 billion in profits in just the first three months of 2019, and earned $22.1 billion in profits last year. When news of the fine broke out, the company's share price went up, leading some to say that the company was out of control. the fact that fb shares surged instead of sank on the FTC news is the story https://t.co/SztA1iAyOg pic.twitter.com/qDrzaR8J4Q — rat king (@MikeIsaac) July 12, 2019 This is presumably because in March 2019, Facebook had already told investors that it was expecting the penalty and had set aside $3 billion for it. As a result, the news of the fine didn't surprise investors, and ironically, reaffirmed their faith in the company. FTC's fine faces criticism The FTC began its investigation into Facebook in March 2018, responding to news reports that Cambridge Analytica had accessed personal data of 87 million Americans for possible violations of the 2011 consent decree the company had signed with the FTC. Congressmen — both Republican and Democrat — have told…
Please subscribe to MediaNama. Don't share prints and PDFs.
You May Also Like
News
Google has released a Google Travel Trends Report which states that branded budget hotel search queries grew 179% year over year (YOY) in India, in...
Advert
135 job openings in over 60 companies are listed at our free Digital and Mobile Job Board: If you’re looking for a job, or...
News
By Aroon Deep and Aditya Chunduru You’re reading it here first: Twitter has complied with government requests to censor 52 tweets that mostly criticised...
News
Rajesh Kumar* doesn’t have many enemies in life. But, Uber, for which he drives a cab everyday, is starting to look like one, he...