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
Record-shattering $5 billion penalty, approximately 20× higher than the previous record privacy penalty.
- 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
Exercise your rights now
Generate a deletion request for $5
The FTC order binds Facebook, Inc.'s future practices, but doesn't automatically delete your existing data. State privacy law (CCPA, CPA, TDPSA, VCDPA) gives you that right. OfflistMe generates a compliant deletion email pre-addressed to Facebook, Inc.'s registered privacy contact.
Start for $5 →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. paid $5,000,000,000 in monetary relief, 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 full rights under state privacy law (CCPA, CPA, TDPSA, VCDPA, and others) to submit your own deletion request. OfflistMe can generate a compliant deletion email 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.).