https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings/092-3184/facebook-inc
FTC Imposes $5 Billion Penalty and Sweeping New Privacy Restrictions on Facebook
FTC settlement imposes historic penalty, and significant requirements to boost accountability and transparency
For Release
July 24, 2019
NOTE: The FTC hosted an IN-PERSON press conference at FTC Headquarters, 600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW, Washington D.C., on July 24, 2019. Watch archival video of the press conference.
Participants included: FTC Chairman Joe Simons, FTC Commissioners Noah Joshua Phillips and Christine S. Wilson, and Gustav W. Eyler, Director of the Department of Justice Civil Division’s Consumer Protection Branch.
Facebook, Inc. will pay a record-breaking $5 billion penalty, and submit to new restrictions and a modified corporate structure that will hold the company accountable for the decisions it makes about its users’ privacy, to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that the company violated a 2012 FTC order by deceiving users about their ability to control the privacy of their personal information.
The $5 billion penalty against Facebook is the largest ever imposed on any company for violating consumers’ privacy and almost 20 times greater than the largest privacy or data security penalty ever imposed worldwide. It is one of the largest penalties ever assessed by the U.S. government for any violation.
The settlement order announced today also imposes unprecedented new restrictions on Facebook’s business operations and creates multiple channels of compliance. The order requires Facebook to restructure its approach to privacy from the corporate board-level down, and establishes strong new mechanisms to ensure that Facebook executives are accountable for the decisions they make about privacy, and that those decisions are subject to meaningful oversight.
“Despite repeated promises to its billions of users worldwide that they could control how their personal information is shared, Facebook undermined consumers’ choices,”
Continued…
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2019/07/ftc-imposes-5-billion-penalty-sweeping-new-privacy-restrictions