A U.S. privacy investigation of Facebook Inc., begun after a major data breach was exposed in March, is likely to result in a record fine against the company, according to a person familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n
The Federal Trade Commission, the nation\u2019s chief privacy watchdog, is weighing a penalty against the social-media giant for violating a 2011 settlement with the agency that required the company to take a series of steps to protect users\u2019 personal information, said the person, who asked not to be named because the investigation is confidential. The probe may be months from completion, the person said.<\/p>\n
The size of the Facebook fine couldn\u2019t be learned. It\u2019s also not clear whether the agency has settled on how much to seek from the Menlo Park, California-based company or whether it will also require changes to Facebook\u2019s data collection and sharing practices.<\/p>\n
Still, the likelihood of the penalty seems to indicate officials have determined there was a violation of the 2011 settlement. The agency opened it\u2019s investigation after the disclosure that political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica gained access to information on about 70 million Facebook users in the U.S. The company has denied the incident was a violation.<\/p>\n
FTC Chairman Joe Simons is under growing pressure to come down hard on Facebook after a series of data-privacy scandals at the company. The revelations have galvanized efforts in Washington to pass comprehensive legislation to better protect the personal information collected by the nation\u2019s technology firms. Lawmakers and advocates have criticized the FTC for not doing enough to crack down on privacy violations even with its limited authority.<\/p>\n
The agency\u2019s previous record fine in a privacy action came in 2012, when Google paid $22.5 million for misrepresenting to users of the Safari internet browser that it wouldn\u2019t place advertising trackers known as cookies on their computers. The amount was minuscule for Google, which reported net income of $10.7 billion that year.<\/p>\n
The FTC and Facebook declined to comment about the investigation. The Washington Post reported earlier on the fine and said the agency\u2019s five commissioners met recently to discuss it.<\/p>\n
The former head of the FTC\u2019s consumer protection division has said the fine could reach hundreds of millions of dollars. Bloomberg Intelligence estimates it could reach into the billions. The investigation is just one the social-media giant is facing in the U.S. The attorney general for the District of Columbia sued the company in December while other states have opened investigations. Facebook has said the Securities and Exchange Commission and the FBI are also investigating.<\/p>\n
The FTC\u2019s 2011 consent decree with Facebook settled claims that the company deceived consumers by telling them they could keep data private, but allowed it to be shared and made public.<\/p>\n
The commission\u2019s complaint included a litany of deceptive practices, such as allowing wider dissemination of profile information like photos, education and place of employment that a user had restricted to \u201cOnly Friends\u201d or \u201cFriends of Friends.\u201d Facebook also promised users that it wouldn\u2019t share personal information about them with advertisers when, in fact, the company identified to advertisers the users who clicked on their ads or to whom ads were targeted. Advertisers could then take steps to get detailed information about users, the FTC said.<\/p>\n
A U.S. privacy investigation of Facebook, begun after a major data breach was exposed in March, is likely to result in a record fine against the company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":221973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[161,12979,56802],"class_list":["post-292770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-facebook","tag-fine","tag-privacy-violations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292770"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}