Facebook has been fined a record-breaking $5 billion (£4bn) to settle a US government investigation into how it handles the privacy of its users.
The US Federal Trade Commission said the social media company will restructure how it protects the data of the nearly three billion people who use the platform.
But
Democrats said the penalty doesn’t go far enough and provides “blanket immunity” for Facebook executives “and no real restraints on Facebook’s business model”.
They added the penalty would not “not fix the core problems that led to these violations”.
Facebook is currently valued at $577.52 billion (£458 billion).
Democratic FTC Commissioners Rebecca Slaughter and Rohit Chopra, who opposed the settlement, said the $5bn penalty may be worth less than Facebook’s gains from violating users’ privacy.
“Until we address Facebook’s core financial incentives for risking our personal privacy and national security, we will not be able to prevent these problems from happening again,” Chopra said.
The FTC said that Facebook’s data policy was deceptive to “tens of millions” of people who used Facebook’s facial recognition tool, and also violated rules when it did not disclose phone numbers collected to enable a security feature would be used for advertising.
Under the settlement, Facebook’s board will create an independent privacy committee that removes “unfettered control by Facebook CEO
Mark Zuckerberg over decisions affecting user privacy.”
Facebook also agreed to exercise greater oversight over third-party apps, Reuters reported.
But FTC
Republicans said the fine was a victory, arguing the settlement “significantly diminishes Mr Mark Zuckerberg’s power ― something no government agency, anywhere in the world, has thus far accomplished.”
The FTC has been investigating allegations that Facebook inappropriately shared information belonging to 87 million users with the now-defunct
British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.
The FTC also said Wednesday that Cambridge’s former CEO Alexander Nix and former app developer Aleksandr Kogan, who worked with the company, had agreed to a settlement with the FTC that will restrict how they conduct business in the future.
The settlement comes a day after the US
Justice Department said on Tuesday it was opening a broad investigation of major digital technology firms into whether they engage in anti-competitive practices, the strongest sign the Trump administration is stepping up its scrutiny of Big Tech.
The review will look into “whether and how market-leading online platforms have achieved market power and are engaging in practices that have reduced competition, stifled innovation, or otherwise harmed consumers,” the Justice Department said in a statement.
The Justice Department did not identify specific companies but said the review would consider concerns raised about “search, social media, and some retail services online” ― an apparent reference to Alphabet Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Facebook Inc, and potentially
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