Facebook Wants to Block FTC Changes to $5B Privacy Settlement
lawyers for Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagramblame the Federal Trade Commission attempting to exercise more power than the agency is legally entitled to. The agency plans to revise its 2020 settlement with Facebook over the company’s data breaches, which fined the company $5 billion, a move Meta says is illegal. The social networking company is trying to block the agency’s process, which would decide whether to revise the settlement.
“The FTC seeks to substitute itself for this court by ‘taking further enforcement action’ and ‘amending’ the Settlement,” Meta’s attorneys wrote in a request for a restraining order filed in Washington, DC District Court on Wednesday. according to Bloomberg. “This court — not the FTC — has exclusive jurisdiction.” Federal Judge Timothy Kelly approved the original settlement and the motion has been filed with him.
For its part, the FTC has repeatedly accused Facebook of violating the terms of the settlement. The agency announced it will hold a meeting on May 3 to amend the settlement and plans to further punish Meta by banning all use of facial recognition and any monetization of child data.
Meta alleges that the FTC is attempting to evade court because agency officials know their proposed changes would not meet legal requirements: “It is clear from the consent order that only the federal court, not the FTC, will enforce it or may change, and the FTC is obligated to comply with its terms,” a meta spokesperson told Bloomberg. Meta and the FTC did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.
The original settlement, the largest fine in FTC history, ordered Facebook to pay $5 billion for misusing its users’ data, betraying their trust, and failing to protect their privacy. The conditions of the settlement has not forbidden Facebook to collect data and pass it on to third parties, However. The fine followed immediately Cambridge Analytica scandalThe data from 87 million users was collected under the guise of a quiz app, but used for political marketing.
