By Beyza Binnur Donmez
ANKARA (AA) - U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced a record-breaking $5 billion settlement with Facebook on Wednesday over the company’s alleged privacy policies.
The order requires Facebook to restructure its approach to privacy from the corporate board-level down, and establishes strong new mechanisms to ensure that Facebook executives are accountable for the decisions they make about privacy, said the commission in a statement.
“Despite repeated promises to its billions of users worldwide that they could control how their personal information is shared, Facebook undermined consumers’ choices,” said FTC Chairman Joe Simons, referring to the company's breach on 2012 FTC order by deceiving users about their ability to control the privacy of their personal information.
“The relief is designed not only to punish future violations but, more importantly, to change Facebook’s entire privacy culture to decrease the likelihood of continued violations," said Simons and added: "The Commission takes consumer privacy seriously, and will enforce FTC orders to the fullest extent of the law.”
The $5 billion fine against Facebook is the largest ever imposed on any company for violating consumers’ privacy and it is one of the largest penalties ever assessed by the U.S. government for any violation, according to the statement.
"To prevent Facebook from deceiving its users about privacy in the future, the FTC’s new 20-year settlement order overhauls the way the company makes privacy decisions by boosting the transparency of decision making and holding Facebook accountable via overlapping channels of compliance," the statement said.
As part of the latest settlement, Facebook will have to create a privacy committee within its board of directors to review decisions within the company and removing "unfettered control" by Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg over decisions affecting user privacy.
"We've agreed to pay a historic fine, but even more important, we're going to make some major structural changes to how we build products and run this company. We have a responsibility to protect people's privacy," Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post published shortly after the FTC's announcement.
"We already work hard to live up to this responsibility, but now we're going to set a completely new standard for our industry," he added.
More than 185 million people in the U.S. and Canada use Facebook on a daily basis. Facebook monetizes user information through targeted advertising, which generated most of the company’s $55.8 billion in revenues in 2018. To encourage users to share information on its platform, Facebook promises users they can control the privacy of their information through Facebook’s privacy settings.