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Facebook might get FTC's largest fine ever: US$5 billion

Mark Zuckerberg's 2018 Congressional testimony
Mark Zuckerberg's 2018 Congressional testimony
As impressive as it may be, the US$5 billion fine that Facebook could be subjected to — after the review of this settlement by the Department of Justice — only accounts for 9 percent of the revenue obtained by the company in 2018. According to some senators and Congress members, this is not enough to get Facebook back in line.

Back in March 2018, an investigation regarding political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica and the way it used the private data of 87 million Facebook users — who were not notified that a third-party is doing so — had begun. This way, Facebook and Cambridge Analytica violated an agreement that had been around since 2011 and stated that the social network had to notify its users when third-parties were given access to their personal data. Now, Facebook has to pay for that and it definitely looks like a record-breaking fine — at least for the Federal Trade Commission.

If the Department of Justice agrees with it, the FTC will impose its largest fine ever on Facebook — no less than US$5 billion. As impressive as this amount seems, it only accounts for 9 percent of Facebook's revenue for the entire last year. Some senators and Congress members think that US$5 billion worth of financial punishment is not enough to ensure that Facebook is not going to fail — willingly — in protecting the privacy of its users again.

In the year that passed since the investigation began, Cambridge Analytica went out of business and Facebook made several changes to the way it provides access to third parties that need to handle the personal data of its users. However, many think that Facebook has not done enough and, since content moderation is also not working as it should, many Facebook users have been switching to other social networks lately. 

Are you still using Facebook? Are you happy with the way it handles your personal data and hate speech/cyberbullying? If you had to switch to another social network right now, which one would you choose and why?

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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2019 07 > Facebook might get FTC's largest fine ever: US$5 billion
Codrut Nistor, 2019-07-15 (Update: 2019-07-15)