There have been rumors about the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) possibly fining Facebook as much as $5 billion for the infamous Cambridge Analytica scandal where the data of users was allowed to be accessed by third-parties without their permission. That fine was recently made official by the FTC. It is the biggest fine of its kind. A spokesman for the FTC said that even huge companies that have been responsible for major environmental damage have not been fined an amount as big as this. The amount is basically one quarter of the profit that Facebook made last year.
While the fine is record setting, it is an amount that Facebook can easily absorb without any problem. The company is so huge at this point that $5 billion will not even make a dent in their finances. According to CNN, the settlement with the FTC does not name any person as being responsible for allowing user data to be harvested. Facebook also did not need to agree to make any major changes to the way they disclose the way that data can be used. This has outraged many lawmakers on Capitol Hill who have said that the penalty was not big enough. However, it was also announced by Facebook that they are currently the subject of an antitrust probe by the FTC. It remains to be seen how that will turn out.
Facebook just reported their earnings for the second quarter of 2019. They were better than industry experts had predicted. It is very clear that people are still using and advertising on Facebook despite their constant privacy scandals. The company is thriving even though it only seems to get bad publicity. This just goes to show how addictive and ingrained in the lives of people that Facebook has become. People will not stop using it.
In addition to the fine, Facebook must submit to additional privacy oversight. The specifics of this were not revealed. The FTC had a 3-2 vote on the fine. Three Republicans voted in favor of the fine and privacy oversight. However, the pair of Democrats who voted against the fine said that it basically amounted to a slap on the wrist for Facebook. They feel that this fine is not big enough of an incentive to make the social media giant change its ways. The Democrats also wanted specific Facebook executives to take responsibility for the bad behavior. That did not happen.
Dil Bole Oberoi
