BREAKING: FTC Says Meta Broke Terms Of $5B Privacy Settlement

BREAKING: FTC Says Meta Broke Terms Of $5B Privacy Settlement

Written By: Ben Kochman

Re-posted from Law360 (May 3, 2023, 1:55 PM EDT) — The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday accused Facebook’s parent company Meta of breaching the terms of a $5 billion privacy settlement by misleading parents about their ability to control who their children could communicate with on the platform, and called for a blanket ban on the company monetizing the data of users under 18.

Meta also misrepresented the access to user data it provided to some app developers, breaching the terms of a 2020 agreement in which the company pledged not to mislead users about privacy choices, the FTC said in a news release.

The agency proposed revising the consent decree to include a new blanket prohibition against monetizing data of children and teens under 18 that use any of Meta’s platforms, including Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and the virtual reality company Oculus. The company would also be barred from releasing new or modified products, services, or features without written confirmation from a third party that its privacy program complies with the order’s requirements, the FTC said.

The 2020 privacy deal — the largest penalty ever won by the FTC — stemmed from an investigation into allegations that one of Facebook’s third-party app developers had harvested and sold data to Cambridge Analytica, a now-defunct British political consulting firm, before the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The FTC found that the tech giant had consistently misled users regarding privacy choices, putting its business interests first, in violation of a 2012 order in which the agency first barred the company from misleading its users about privacy.

“Facebook has repeatedly violated its privacy promises,” said Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s bureau of consumer protection, in a statement. “The company’s recklessness has put young users at risk, and Facebook needs to answer for its failures.”

Representatives for Meta did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment.

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