Facebook slapped with record-breaking $5 billion fine for breaching users’ privacy

The fine was levied by the Federal Trade Commission and is the biggest it’s ever levied on a tech company, though it won’t make much of a dent for a company that had nearly $56 billion in revenue last year.

As part of the agency’s settlement with Facebook, Zuckerberg will have to personally certify his company’s compliance with its privacy programs.

The FTC said that false certifications could expose him to civil or criminal penalties.

Some experts had thought the FTC might fine Zuckerberg directly or seriously limit his authority over the company.

‘The magnitude of the $5 billion penalty and sweeping conduct relief are unprecedented in the history of the FTC,’ Joe Simons, the chairman of the FTC, said in a statement. He added that the new restrictions are designed “to change Facebook’s entire privacy culture to decrease the likelihood of continued violations.’

Facebook does not admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

Two of the five commissioners opposed the settlement and said they would have preferred litigation to seek tougher penalties.

The commission opened an investigation into Facebook last year after revelations that data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica had gathered details on as many as 87 million Facebook users without their permission.

The agency said that folllowing its yearlong investigation of the company, the Department of Justice will file a complaint alleging that Facebook “repeatedly used deceptive disclosures and settings to undermine users’ privacy preferences’.

The FTC had been examining whether that massive breakdown violated a settlement that Facebook reached in 2012 after government regulators concluded the company repeatedly broke its privacy promises to users. That settlement had required that Facebook get user consent to share personal data in ways that override their privacy settings.

The FTC said Facebook’s deceptive disclosures about privacy settings allowed it to share users’ personal information with third-party apps that their friends downloaded but the users themselves did not give permissions to.

Privacy advocates have pushed for the FTC to limit how Facebook can track users – something that would likely cut into its advertising revenue, which relies on businesses being able to show users targeted ads based on their interests and behavior. The FTC did not specify such restrictions on Facebook.

Three Republican commissioners voted for the fine while two Democrats opposed it, a clear sign that the restrictions on Facebook don’t go as far as critics and privacy advocates had hoped. That wish list included specific punishment for Zuckerberg, strict limits on what data Facebook can collect and possibly even breaking off subsidiaries such as WhatsApp and Instagram.

‘The proposed settlement does little to change the business model or practices that led to the recidivism,’ wrote Commissioner Rohit Chopra in his dissenting statement. He noted that the settlement imposes ‘no meaningful changes’ to the company’s structure or business model.

‘Nor does it include any restrictions on the company’s mass surveillance or advertising tactics,’ he wrote.

The fine is well above the agency’s previous record for privacy violations – $22.5 million – which it dealt to Google in 2012 for bypassing the privacy controls in Apple’s Safari browser.