FTC Facebook settlement: $5 billion fine reported for user privacy violations

The Federal Trade Commission voted to approve a fine of roughly $5 billion against Facebook over user-privacy violations by the social media company that involved tens of millions of people, according to several media reports. Rep. David Cicilline of Rhode Island called the fine "a Christmas present five months early." Sen. Mark Warner, of Virginia, called on Congress to act, saying the FTC was "either unable or unwilling to put in place reasonable guardrails to ensure that user privacy and data are protected." Facebook made a profit of $22 billion last year on $56 billion in total revenue, or a profit margin of 45%. Facebook earmarked $3 billion for a potential fine earlier this year and said in April it was anticipating having to pay up to $5 billion."People want to have this cathartic hand slap that really teaches Silicon Valley a lesson of some sort," Ian Sherr, editor-at-large for CNET, told CBSN. Given how much money Facebook has on hand, "in a lot of ways this is just couch change," Sherr added.The FTC started looking into Facebook last March, after news reports that Facebook had allowed Cambridge Analytica, a social media data firm that worked on President Trump's 2016 campaign, to collect data from millions of users without their knowledge. As part of that settlement, Facebook agreed to ask for users' permission before sharing their data more broadly than their privacy settings specified.Facebook declined to comment on the reports of the FTC fine; the FTC did not immediately respond to messages for comment from the Associated Press. Some have called on the FTC to hold Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally liable for the privacy violations in some way, but based on the party line vote breakdown experts said this is not likely.Marc Rotenberg, president of the nonprofit online privacy advocacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center, said he was "confused" as to why the Democratic commissioners didn't support the settlement and said he suspects, without having seen the actual settlement, that this was due to the Zuckerberg liability question."But I thought that was misguided," he said, adding that EPIC instead supports more wholesale limits on how Facebook handles user privacy.Since the Cambridge Analytica debacle erupted more than a year ago and prompted the FTC investigation, Facebook has vowed to do a better job corralling its users' data. Facebook had allowed Trump vendor Cambridge Analytica to collect data from millions of users without their knowledge Facebook had allowed Trump vendor Cambridge Analytica to collect data from millions of users without their knowledge Facebook had allowed Trump vendor Cambridge Analytica to collect data from millions of users without their knowledge