Facebook fine won’t end pain

FACEBOOK survived its latest brush with US privacy regulators, at the cost of a record $5 billion fine and other restrictions imposed by the Federal Trade Commission.

But it’s far from home free. While the company looks set to prosper in the wake of the FTC case, it faces a series of other investigations into its privacy practices in Europe and across the US.

Concerns over the limits of the just-settled probe could fuel efforts to craft tougher privacy laws at the state and federal level.

The social network is also gearing up to fight investigathe tions into its allegedly anticompetitive behaviour, such as Facebook’s habit of buying would-be rivals like Instagram and duplicating features introduced by competing services.

The Department of Justice opened a broad antitrust probe focused on technology companies this week, while Facebook also disclosed that it faces a fresh FTC investigation into alleged anticompetitive behaviour. It didn’t provide details of scope or focus of the probe.

Representatives of the FTC confirmed the antitrust investigation but offered no additional information.

The outcome of these investigations may well determine whether the world’s governments can actually rein in a transnational corporation that directly touches almost a third of the world’s population.

“There is a lot more to come on the regulatory front for Facebook,” said Debra Aho Williamson, analyst with the research firm eMarketer. She said the company would “do whatever it can” to change its business model to pre-empt it.