Facebook Falls Further As FTC Declares Fines Of $40k Per Affected User Possible

David Vladeck, a former director at the US Federal Trade Commission, claims that according to existing regulations (which the social media company has undersigned with US authorities), it could face fines of up to $40,000 per affected user (50 million users were allegedly affected) if the data mining operation could prove to have violated the agreement.

Related coverage: https://thegoldwater.com/news/21021-Twitter-Stocks-Plummet-Amidst-Social-Media-Sphere-Implosion

Should Facebook have to pay that fine for all 50m users whose data is possibly compromised, Mr Zuckerberg’s company would have to pay up some $2tn.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Facebook?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Facebook</a> could be fined Trillions of dollars! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/QAnon?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#QAnon</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GreatAwakening?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#GreatAwakening</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@POTUS</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@realDonaldTrump</a> <a href="https://t.co/P2l7gfbFgD">https://t.co/P2l7gfbFgD</a></p>&mdash; RunningTheRace (@2runtherace) <a href="https://twitter.com/2runtherace/status/976235820934975494?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 20, 2018</a></blockquote>

<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Back in 2011, Facebook undersigned a 20-year user privacy settlement with the US FTC as lawmakers wanted the company to make it clearer how users’ data were shared.

Related coverage: https://thegoldwater.com/news/20997-Facebook-Took-35bn-Hit-As-Zuckerberg-Sold-Shares-Before-Scandal-Broke

When asked about the possible fine for Facebook, the FTC answered via a spokesperson: “We are aware of the issues that have been raised but cannot comment on whether we are investigating. We take any allegations of violations of our consent decrees very seriously as we did in 2012 in a privacy case involving Google.”

Facebook, which saw its stock fell further yesterday has taken to responding via legal teams as from this point. When asked for further clarification, Mr Rob Sherman, Facebook’s deputy chief privacy officer, stated that: “We remain strongly committed to protecting people’s information. We appreciate the opportunity to answer questions the FTC may have.”

Related coverage: https://thegoldwater.com/news/20964-Obama-Admin-Official-Facebook-Allowed-Us-To-Datamine-Because-They-Were-On-Our-Side

Shares in Facebook fell another 5.4 per cent to close at $163.20.

The stock has now lost over 12 per cent since the scandal broke.

Source:

https://qz.com/1233597/did-facebook-violate-its-ftc-agreement-heres-what-investigators-will-ask/