Facebook, Inc., $5,000,000,000
Largest-ever FTC civil penalty. Facebook paid $5 billion and accepted a 20-year consent order after the Cambridge Analytica incident and related privacy failures violated its 2012 FTC order.
Case identifiers
- Respondent
- Facebook, Inc.
- Agency
- Federal Trade Commission
- Announced
- 2019-07-24
- Monetary relief
- $5,000,000,000
- Case number
- FTC v. Facebook, No. 19-cv-2184 (D.D.C.)
- Statutes cited
- FTC Act § 5 · Violation of 2012 FTC consent order
Key facts
- 1
The FTC described the record-shattering $5 billion penalty as almost 20 times the largest privacy or data-security penalty ever imposed worldwide.
- 2
Imposed in response to Cambridge Analytica harvesting data of 87 million Facebook users without consent.
- 3
Established the Independent Privacy Committee at Facebook’s board and personal certification requirements for Mark Zuckerberg and the Chief Privacy Officer.
- 4
20-year consent order with quarterly external assessments.
What the order requires
Injunctive terms imposed by the Federal Trade Commission. These bind Facebook, Inc.'s data practices going forward.
- Personal certification of compliance by Mark Zuckerberg (CEO) and the Chief Privacy Officer each quarter.
- Creation of a new independent privacy committee at the board level.
- External third-party assessments every two years.
- Prohibition on using collected phone numbers for ad targeting.
Primary sources
Read the original government documents. These are the authoritative records, everything on this page is derived from them.
- Federal Trade Commission press releasehttps://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2019/07/ftc-imposes-5-billion-penalty-sweeping-new-privacy-restrictions-facebook
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Where this action sits in the tracker
- It is one of 19 FTC actions among the 26 cases in this tracker.
- Of the 19 tracked actions with monetary relief, $5,000,000,000 ranks number 1 by amount.
- 3 tracked actions were announced in 2019.
- It is one of 7 tracked deceptive-advertising actions.
- It is one of 6 tracked adtech actions.
FAQ
What did the FTC charge Facebook, Inc. with?+
Largest-ever FTC civil penalty. Facebook paid $5 billion and accepted a 20-year consent order after the Cambridge Analytica incident and related privacy failures violated its 2012 FTC order. The Federal Trade Commission cited FTC Act § 5, Violation of 2012 FTC consent order.
How much did Facebook, Inc. pay?+
Facebook, Inc. had monetary relief of $5,000,000,000, announced on 2019-07-24. The settlement also imposed injunctive terms (see below).
Does the Facebook, Inc. settlement mean my data has been deleted?+
No, the order does not automatically delete your data. You retain any rights available under applicable state privacy law (CCPA, CPA, TDPSA, VCDPA, and others) to submit your own deletion request. OfflistMe can generate a user-reviewed request draft pre-addressed to the respondent’s privacy contact.
How can I read the original FTC order?+
The Federal Trade Commission press release is available at https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2019/07/ftc-imposes-5-billion-penalty-sweeping-new-privacy-restrictions-facebook. The case / matter number is FTC v. Facebook, No. 19-cv-2184 (D.D.C.).