Facebook's headache is not over – $ 5B fine is not ending research
Facebook may be close to setting up a Federal Trade Commission investigation behind it. But it faces a number of other probes in Europe and the United States, some of which may present it with even greater headaches.
While the $ 5 billion FTC fine, which Facebook has been expecting, is by far the largest agency to have lived on a technology company, the real concerns for Facebook – and its investors and the companies that use it to advertise on their service – they are other restrictions and government supervision that can come along. This also applies to the other surveys, which span the world from the EU, Germany and Belgium to New York, Canada and elsewhere.
"This final signals that regulators are leaping up the pressure," said Dimitri Sirota, CEO of BigID, a company data security company, in an email. He said the FTC, along with recent European fines on British Airways and Marriott, shows that regulators around the world are getting stronger in breaking down privacy violations. Facebook may think that the bow is easily affordable, he said, but it hurts his image and credibility.
Facebook set for record $ 5 billion fine over its privacy expires
In addition to the regulatory investigations, Cowen analyst John Blackledge noted that Facebook and other large companies are also facing major antitrust problems.
Facebook has had more than a decade of undeveloped growth like Silicon Valley Golden Children, trusted to regulate itself and keep its 2.4 billion user interests at heart.
Then came Russian interference in the election 201[ads1]6, fake news and the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where a political data mining company associated with the 2016 presidential election Donald Trump's campaign has inaccurate access to the personal information of as many as 87 million users.
Regulators, mainly in Europe, but also in the United States, encouraged themselves. And now Facebook faces the prospect of not just several billion in fines, but further restrictions on its business.
Irish Data Protection Commission
Ireland's Data Protection Officer has launched a Facebook survey of the data in Cambridge Analytica last year. If the question is whether the company fulfilled strict European regulations that came into force in May 2018, which covers data protection. Under the new rules, companies may be hit with fines equal to 4 percent of the annual global turnover of the most serious violations.
The probe could potentially cost Facebook more than $ 2.3 billion in fines based on revenue in 2018, or more if it makes more money this year, which is anything but safe. The Commission, which handles electronic data regulation for the EU, has nearly a dozen open surveys on Facebook that include further subsidiaries, WhatsApp and Instagram. Facebook says it collaborates with the surveys.
U.S. Housing and Urban Development
The US government charged Facebook with high-tech housing discrimination in March for allowing landlords and real estate agents to systematically exclude groups such as non-Christians, immigrants, and minorities from seeing advertisements for homes and apartments. [19659002] The civil charges filed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development could cost the social network millions of dollars in penalties. Importantly, they already affect the company's business model – its ability to target ads with near-surgical precision. Of this type, this type of targeting excludes some people and includes others. And it's not always legal.
The fees came despite changes Facebook announced a week earlier to its ad metering system. The company had agreed to overtake its targeting system and abandon some of the practices identified by HUD to prevent discrimination, not only in housing listings, but also in credit and employment ads. The move was part of a settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union and other activists. But HUD did not participate in the settlement. Facebook says that it continues to work with civil rights experts on the problems.
Canada's Privacy Work
More from Cambridge Analytica, Canada's Privacy Policy announced in April that it is taking Facebook to court after finding that the salmon privacy practices allowed personal information to be used for political purposes.
A joint report from Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien and his British Columbia counterpart said that major shortcomings were revealed in Facebook's procedures. Stronger laws are required to protect Canadians. Facebook says that it takes the investigation seriously.
UK, Belgium, Germany
In October, British regulators beat Facebook with a fine of £ 500,000 ($ 644,000) – maximum possible – not to protect the privacy of users in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The company said it appealed fines, so the case is still technical, unresolved.
The Belgian Data Protection Authority and Germany's Federal Cartel Office also look at Facebook's data collection practices.
Washington DC, Public Prosecutor General
If federal investigations were not enough, Facebook also meets local authorities. Lawyers General of Washington, D.C. and California are looking at Cambridge Analytica, while the New York lawyer examines the company's unauthorized collection of 1.5 million user contact lists. Facebook said it was working with the law firm in New York and that the collection was unintentional. It also says that it cooperates with other lawyers generally in their probes.
FBI, SEC
Although the scope of their involvement in the FTC survey is unclear, Facebook has confirmed that it has received questions from the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission over Cambridge Analytica, and that it cooperates with the request.
