Facebook Faces Fine

FACEBOOK HAS HELD ITS ANNUAL F8 Developer’s Conference, where it unveiled its plans for a fresh new look, code name: FB5. The redesign promises to be less cluttered, easier to navigate, and with more emphasis on Workplace chat and groups. All well and good, but the hot potato is privacy. In Zuckerberg’s opening address, he claimed that “the future is private,” and “We don’t have the strongest reputation on privacy right now, to put it lightly, but I’m committed to doing this well, and to starting a new chapter for our products.” Actual details were thin on the ground, although there was talk of restricting data requests by third parties, and encrypting data by default. Facebook may not be able to read your messages, but it’ll still be able to build a comprehensive data profile on you—that is, after all, its core business.

The last year hasn’t been the smoothest for Facebook. The mounting criticism over privacy blunders and an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission are coming to a head. There is going to be a fine, and it is expected to break records. This unenviable record is currently held by Google, which shelled out $22.5 million in 2012. Facebook is looking at something in the $3–5 billion range. This dates back to a promise in 2011 to get permission from its users to share data with third parties, which the FTC says Facebook has broken. A couple of senators have gone as far as urging the FTC to make Mr. Zuckerberg personally responsible for privacy violations—an unlikely event. As well as the fine, Facebook looks likely to face many years of FTC monitoring. Luckily, the company has a mountain of cash, earnings are buoyant, and news of the size of the impending fine didn’t dent the stock price one bit. Facebook is still hugely popular—and profitable. We may not trust it as much as before, but we don’t appear to be deleting it either.