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F.T.C. Approves Facebook Fine of About $5 Billion
The Federal Trade Commission has approved a fine of roughly $5 billion against Facebook for mishandling users' personal information, according to three people briefed on the vote, in what would be a landmark settlement that signals a newly aggressive stance by regulators toward the country's most powerful technology companies.
The much-anticipated settlement still needs final approval in the coming weeks from the Justice Department, which rarely rejects settlements reached by the agency. It would be the biggest fine by far levied by the federal government against a technology company, easily eclipsing the $22 million imposed on Google in 2012. The size of the penalty underscored the rising frustration among Washington officials with how Silicon Valley giants collect, store and use people's information.
It would also represent one of the most aggressive regulatory actions by the Trump administration, and a sign of the government's willingness to punish one of the country's biggest and most powerful companies. President Trump has dialed back regulations in many industries, but the Facebook settlement sets a new bar for privacy enforcement by United States officials, who have brought few cases against large technology companies.
Also at Reuters, CNBC, The Verge, MarketWatch, and CNN.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 13 2019, @03:33PM (3 children)
This is what, a month's revenue? Their consent decree exposes them to penalties of up to $40,000 per user (per day). Let's take a look at the math ...
- Actual Fine: $5,000,000,000 / 540,000,000 records = $9.26 per record.
- Potential Fine: 540,000,000 * $40,000 per record (assuming only one day) = $21,600,000,000,000 (that's $21.6 trillion with a "T").
So Facebook was hit with a fine that is 0.023125% of the fines outlined in the consent decree.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 13 2019, @04:31PM (2 children)
Revenue =/ Profit. This is closer to a losing a quarter of the years profit.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 13 2019, @04:35PM (1 child)
Which still means they're not in the red and therefore have no incentive to stop what they're doing.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday July 14 2019, @01:35AM
5 such expenses and they're in the red, assuming you believe their accounting in the first place. In the meanwhile, last I checked none of the parties involved in Facebook are interested in losing vast amounts of money.