'Breaking the law shouldn’t be profitable,' Rohit Chopra, one of the FTC's two Democratic commissioners, tweeted. '$5 billion is a lot, but Facebook can pay out of its profits.'
Politicians in both parties, technologists and even a former Facebook executive blasted the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday for its $5 billion settlement with the social media giant.
Critics took aim at the size of the fine, the lack of personal accountability leveled at any Facebook executives, the decision to offer immunity to past privacy violations, and the absence of consideration for ensuring that the company could not use the FTC's rules to stave off competition. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. called the agreement, which also forces the company to set up an independent privacy oversight board, a"sweetheart deal."
"For a mere fraction of Facebook’s annual revenues, the FTC has given Facebook and executives like Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg blanket immunity for violations of the law that we know about, and even for potential crimes that are still unknown," Wyden said in a statement.that the FTC settlement"utterly fails to penalize Facebook in any effective way."
"This settlement does nothing to change Facebook’s creepy surveillance of its own users & the misuse of user data," Hawley wrote."It does nothing to hold executives accountable."
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