Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privacy Issues

Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by athenot on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @04:52PM (#19742482)

I am not a lawyer but intent appears to play a big role. A company that is negligent or incompetent will always face a lesser repercussion than one who acts deliberately.

Now of course this is not to exonerate Equifax whose entire premise rests on safeguarding sensitive information. From the consumer side, the 2 incidents are equally bad.

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by killyp on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @05:22PM (#19742713)

Not that I completely disagree with you, but lets not pretend that leaking SSN is equivalent to possibly leaking emails and passwords. One of those is far more important than the others. There was also tons of evidence of insider trading by Equifax execs. If anything the Equifax stuff proved to me that the American public doesn't care about privacy and so neither should investors.

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by bhandziuk on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @06:42PM (#19743271)

Which one are you saying is more sensitive: my ssn or my email password?

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by Maximus9000 on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @09:25PM (#19744165)

Maybe real dollar values will help this discussion:

https://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit/what-your-identity-i...

And gmail credentials:

https://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-07/how-much-y...

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by MiroF on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @07:51PM (#19743674)

Hilarious that the two replies to you are exact opposite answers, and neither is the original commentator

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by asdffdsa on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @06:54PM (#19743344)

Email password, of course. I give out my ssn for identification to various organizations. I NEVER give out my email password to anyone except my email provider

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by parthdesai on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @06:52PM (#19743336)

Is that even a question? guess what is needed when you go apply for mortgage?

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by jeremyjh on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @05:59PM (#19743011)

> whose entire premise rests on safeguarding sensitive information

Is this a joke? You are not Equifax's customer and they do not need your trust. Their entire premise is selling information about you, to people who do not trust you. Securing your data is something they have to do for compliance, not a core part of their business.

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by will_brown on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @07:12PM (#19743440)

Equifax did not violate the terms of a prior FTC settlement agreement in order to avoid punishment for their prior bad behavior. It’s a lot easier to expedite penalties when there is a written settlement that is being violated than original bad acts.

The Equifax matter is far from over, they are being investigated by: 48 state Attorneys General offices, the District of Columbia, the FTC, the CFPB, the SEC, the Department of Justice, other U.S. state regulators, certain Congressional committees of both the Senate and House of Representatives, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, and the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority.

Not to mention they made a recent SEC filing acknowledging they expect fines from FTC and CFPB.

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by throwawaytoday5 on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @04:44PM (#19742426)

Can someone explain how Facebook gets a fine but Equifax doesn't? I don't understand how? Or has Equifax not been fined yet?

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by stefan_ on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @04:57PM (#19742531)

They violated a 2011 settlement with the FTC:

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2011/11/faceb...

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by cm2012 on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @04:49PM (#19742459)

Facebook is a popular target right now and the subject is politically charged. That's it.

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by tschellenbach on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @04:52PM (#19742486)

Doesn't seem great that fines are determined based on how hot/not some firm is politically. I'm pretty sure someone can make a list of 100 companies that deserve more fines than Facebook.

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by throwaway2048 on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @05:15PM (#19742658)

And all the connected criminals that got away ought to be punished first, I'm sure a judge will agree with the wisdom of this argument and let you go.

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by beat on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @04:58PM (#19742534)

I doubt the judge was thinking about politics. Courtrooms aren't the internet, thankfully.

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by hammock on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @04:51PM (#19742476)

Same reason Martha Stewart got jail time. Ever watch Billions?

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by eeeeeeeeeeeee on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @05:08PM (#19742607)

So what are you saying exactly? We can’t set our eyes on Facebook because someone else is worse?

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by product50 on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @05:46PM (#19742907)

Precedence matters - especially for government inquiries and fines.

Also, people use FB by choice today while something like Equifax is forced upon us given institutional structures. So it is unclear why Facebook is more wrong than Equifax.

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by wil421 on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @09:59PM (#19744363)

Equifax being negligent and Facebook repeatedly being caught doing bad stuff is different. You need to show intent, Equifax didn’t intended to get breached. Facebook certainly intended to do all the shady stuff they’ve been caught doing.

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by crushcrashcrush on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @04:41PM (#19742388)

Leaking this data wasn't an intrinsic part of their business model.

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by paxy on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @06:49PM (#19743311)

It is, even more so than Facebook. Buying and selling your personal financial data is Equifax's entire business.

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by lordnacho on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @04:48PM (#19742450)

Similar punishment for similar transgressions is how the law is supposed to work.

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by CharlesColeman on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @05:55PM (#19742967)

> Similar punishment for similar transgressions is how the law is supposed to work.

Facebook and Equifax did not commit similar transgressions, and to say to is misleading.

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by lordnacho on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @07:08PM (#19743420)

I'm not sure anyone claims that, but obviously saying "Similar punishment for similar transgressions" means that different transgressions need not have the same punishments.

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by munk-a on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @04:51PM (#19742473)

Assuming those punishments are fair and just - the punishments companies have been getting lately for privacy violations have been relatively consistent - nobody is actually being punished.

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by jokoon on Sunday April 28, 2019 @03:11AM (#19769811)

I think equifax has a "too big to fail" burden, credit scores are part of how things work in the country. And I'm not sure they're directly responsible for the leak of their data.

Facebook is far from being essential, it's mostly a consumer product. There are so many voices against facebook that I don't think there would be enough public support to protect facebook.

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by colordrops on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @05:07PM (#19742594)

The political think tank that promulgated the term "whataboutism" has created a bane on humanity.

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by dredmorbius on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @09:32PM (#19744204)

Whataboutism (also known as whataboutery) is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy...

The term "whataboutery" has been used in Britain and Ireland since the period of the Troubles (conflict) in Northern Ireland.[10][11][12] Lexicographers date the first appearance of the variant whataboutism to the 1990s[1][10] or 1970s...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=tu+quoque&case...

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by colordrops on Thursday April 25, 2019 @02:23AM (#19745540)

The problem with the term "whataboutism" is that its users wield it to prevent discussion about anything that doesn't fit their agenda. In particular, its main use has been to amplify the Russiagate conspiracy which was never backed by any evidence and yet was the forefront of public attention for almost three years. If you pointed out actual evidence-based foreign influence such as that put forward by the Saudis, you were accused of "whataboutism". This was almost certainly a tactic dreamed up in a politically motivated D.C. think tank or PR firm, and has prevented fruitful discussion of countless real issues for an extended period of time.

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by dredmorbius on Thursday April 25, 2019 @06:41AM (#19746719)

You're labouring under several grave misapprehensions. This addresses one of them:

https://archive.org/details/muellerreport/page/n7

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by AWildC182 on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @06:13PM (#19743093)

It's not inherently bad, it's just misused a lot IMO.

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by xvector on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @05:06PM (#19742591)

Equifax needs to be fined until its existence can only be found in the history books, and its negligent management needs to be jailed for the long-term harm that they have caused.

Same with Facebook. But OP's point is that the collective has too short an attention span to actually hold any of these actors to the law.

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by JustSomeNobody on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @07:55PM (#19743709)

OP Said > Before this thread becomes a Facebook bashing session,

It absolutely should be a FB bashing session. Just because some company got away with something doesn't mean they all should.

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Re:Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5B by FTC Over Privac... by xvector on Thursday April 25, 2019 @06:04PM (#19752925)

> Just because some company got away with something doesn't mean they all should.

I totally agree.

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