Facebook's fine from the FTC could have been a lot bigger—if the federal agency hadn't caved under Facebook's pressure
Washington Postthat the independent government agency had originally planned to fine Facebook “tens of billions of dollars” and impose reforms that would hold Zuckerberg personally accountable—a potentially historic action that would have had serious consequences for Facebook and forced significant changes at the company. Instead, the FTC reportedly caved under pressure from Facebook’s larger and better capitalized legal team.
Internally, the agency knew that it wasn’t guaranteed to get a multi-billion dollar fine and other new commitments from a federal judge. Adding to the trouble, the agency, armed with a relatively small $306 million budget in 2018 that supported roughly 1,100 employees, had to confront the possibility that it might be outmatched in such litigation.
A loss also could have immensely damaged the agency, perhaps setting a legal standard that curtailed the commission’s authority to police other tech giants for their privacy and security practices.The resulting $5 billion fine is notable for being the biggest civil penalty fine paid to the FTC, easily beating out a previous $22 million tech fine levied against Google in 2012.
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