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Facebook set to pay $5bn fine for privacy violations
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Washington, July 24
Facebook is set to pay $5
billion to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) this week as fine for
users' privacy violations in the Cambridge Analytica data scandal
involving 87 million users.

The FTC has also fined credit bureau
Equifax $575-$700 million for the breach that compromised 147 million
users' personal data in 2017, Slate.com reported on Tuesday.

Earlier
this month, the FTC commissioners voted by 3-2 with Republicans in
support and Democrats in opposition to the penalty on Facebook.

It
is still unclear what the restrictions are on Facebook's handling of
user privacy in the settlement. FTC and Facebook declined to comment on
the story. But Facebook said in April that it expected to pay up to $5
billion to settle the probe.

The FTC initiated the investigation
after a scandal involving former British consulting firm Cambridge
Analytica, which was accused of illegally accessing data of more than 87
million Facebook users without their prior knowledge.

The FTC
investigated whether Facebook's data sharing with the British firm
violated a 2011 consent agreement signed between Facebook and the
regulator.

The fine is the largest one the FTC has ever levied on
a tech company. But it's affordable for Facebook, which brought in
almost $56 billion in revenue in 2018.

There have been several
incidents after the Cambridge Analytica episode where Facebook
acknowledged series of privacy lapses, including the latest admission
that it mishandled millions of users' passwords on Instagram and
"unintentionally" uploaded emails of nearly 1.5 million of its new
users.

Facebook was set to announce its second quarter (Q2) results on Wednesday.