Last month, Facebook said it expected to pay at least $3 billion to settle with the Federal Trade Commission over privacy screwups that exposed private data of as many as 87 million people to the political consultancy Cambridge Analytica. Turns out, there’s a reason we haven’t heard much more.
A story in the Wall Street Journal published Friday said the FTC is split over the settlement deal, delaying its decision. While the story doesn’t have many details, nor does it speak to the debates on Capitol Hill about whether Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg should personally be named in the settlement, the story does indicate the FTC’s Republican Chairman Joseph Simons is struggling to win support among the commission’s Democrats.
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“A Republican-only decision could expose it to criticism by Democrats and diminish its impact for the enforcement agency, which has sometimes been criticized for being toothless on privacy in the past,” the WSJ wrote, citing anonymous sources.
An FTC spokeswoman declined to comment. A Facebook spokeswoman said, “We hope to reach an appropriate and fair resolution.”
Facebook, the world’s largest social network with more than 2.3 billion people using it each month, has been under scrutiny over the past couple years for a string of scandals around user privacy, fake news and corporate malfeasance.
One of the most high profile dramas has been around Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy that Facebook found out had inappropriately purchased user data from an app developer in 2015, but failed to force the company to delete user data or inform users of the breach. The scandal led to multiple hearings in legislatures across around the world, and a push among lawmakers in DC to begin regulating the tech industry.
The FTC’s potential fine is the first meaningful response from DC since the scandal began. If it happens, Facebook’s multibillion dollar fine will be the largest ever paid by a tech firm. The largest FTC fine before that was $22.5 million the agency imposed on Google in 2012.
First published May 24 at 1:08 p.m. PT.
Update, 1:35 p.m. PT: Adds FTC declined to comment and more details.