The Federal Trade Commission (FC) approved around $5 billion settlement with Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) over the social media giant’s consumer privacy violations.
FTC Commissioners voted 3-2, in which the Republican majority supported the settlement. The Democratic Commissioners opposed it, according to the Wall Street Journal citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.
The Commission did not announce the details of its settlement with Facebook. However, in April, the social media giant’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg disclosed that the FTC investigation will likely result to a $3 billion to $5 billion fine.
The $5 billion monetary penalty will be the largest imposed against a technology company by the FTC. It represents approximately nine percent of the Facebook’s nearly $56 billion revenue last year.
The FTC launched an investigation into Facebook’s privacy practices in March 2018, amid the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. The Commission investigated whether the company violated a 2011 consent decree requiring it to notify users and receive explicit consent before sharing their personal data beyond their privacy settings.
