Facebook has been hit with various privacy scandals over the past year or so, and for the most part the company has managed to escape unscathed. However it looks like their run of luck could be over because in a report from The Washington Post, Facebook could be looking at a multibillion dollar fine from the FTC.
The report claims that the FTC and Facebook are currently in talks to negotiate a fine that will settle the FTC’s investigation into Facebook’s privacy practices. Assuming that they manage to come up with a suitable number, this could very well be the largest fine imposed by the FTC on a tech company to date, but so far there is no word on how much it could be.
Facebook has since confirmed that they are in talks with the FTC, but declined to offer any additional specifics. According to Democratic Sen Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), “Facebook faces a moment of reckoning and the only way it will come is through an FTC order with severe penalties and other sanctions that stop this kind of privacy misconduct going forward.”
Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center adds, “It is an open question at this moment in time whether the Federal Trade Commission is an effective privacy agency, and it is also an open question as to whether the FTC is willing to use its current authority to safeguard consumer privacy in the United States.”
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