Facebook’s $5 billion fine won’t fix privacy
The Federal Trade Commission issued a $5 billion fine against Facebook on Wednesday.
It’s a number that makes for impressive headlines, but it is largely meaningless. Facebook posted $15 billion in revenue last quarter, at which point it announced that it had set aside $3 billion to pay potential fines.
The agency also has declined to hold Mark Zuckerberg — or anyone else — personally liable for Facebook’s repeated privacy violations. Come again?
Yes, Facebook has agreed to sweeping new oversight of how the company handles personal data, which includes information like names, phone numbers, IP addresses and even biometric information. But the oversight largely consists of a mandatory privacy
program to be created by Facebook, for Facebook.
The company agreed to a privacy program back in 2011 when it first got into trouble with the FTC. The new privacy program is much more stringently outlined, but it is not enough. In the words of Commissioner Rohit Chopra, who cast one of two dissenting votes on the new deal: “The settlement imposes no meaningful changes to the company’s structure or financial incentives, which led to these violations. Nor does it include any restrictions on the company’s mass surveillance or advertising tactics.”
The Federal Trade Commission is also responsible for this state of affairs. When the FTC did strive to protect Americans’ privacy, its resources were never quite enough to stand up to tech giants.
On the same day that the FTC announced the new settlement and $5 billion fine on Facebook, the company disclosed that it was the subject of an antitrust investigation by the agency, and possibly by the Justice Department as well. But despite renewed interest in antitrust for the tech industry, antitrust law itself must evolve before robust government oversight has any chance of taking place.
This week, Zuckerberg announced major changes to his company’s privacy protections. “Overall, these changes go beyond anything required under U.S. law today,” he wrote in a Facebook post.
He is right. And that’s a profound condemnation of American privacy laws. us monthly to learn more about us and the newsroom, and also to provide feedback on a wide variety of topics — both topics they bring up and some that we bring to them.
The next group of advisers was selected last week from among nearly 300 applicants, and they have been notified by email about their selection and the group’s first meeting in August.
It was a difficult selection process because so many of you are passionate about news regarding this place we all call home and specifically about The Dispatch’s coverage of it. It was gratifying to see so many notes of support for news reporting, and it was informative to read comments from those who are willing to tell us how we can better serve central Ohio.
Many thanks to all who sought to join the advisory board. If you applied and didn’t make it this time, we hope you will apply again next year.
Alan D. Miller is editor of The Dispatch.
amiller@dispatch.com @dispatcheditor