Facebook has faced some serious and irreparable damage recently following a very public scandal. This has lead the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate the company's privacy practices in the wake of a very disturbing revelation that over 50 million users' account information was mined by Cambridge Analytica without their consent.
The agency has now spoken out about their probe into the world's most widely used social media platform, after initially declining to comment on their involvement in the situation last week. "The FTC takes very seriously recent press reports raising substantial concerns about the privacy practices of Facebook. Today, the FTC is confirming that it has an open non-public investigation into these practices."
The investigation will aim to uncover whether or not Facebook violated any consent decrees, which requires them to seek out explicit permission from a user before their data is shared with any third party organization. If they are found guilty, the company will be fined $40,000 per case, which would amount to trillions of dollars after factoring in each of the 50,000,000 profiles effected by the leaching.
As a result, Facebook's stocks have plummeted 6% because of the FTC's investigative efforts: peep their full statement below:
"The FTC is firmly and fully committed to using all of its tools to protect the privacy of consumers. Foremost among these tools is enforcement action against companies that fail to honor their privacy promises, including to comply with Privacy Shield, or that engage in unfair acts that cause substantial injury to consumers in violation of the FTC Act. Companies who have settled previous FTC actions must also comply with FTC order provisions imposing privacy and data security requirements. Accordingly, the FTC takes very seriously recent press reports raising substantial concerns about the privacy practices of Facebook. Today, the FTC is confirming that it has an open non-public investigation into these practices."