Professor Joel Reidenberg was quoted in a Law360 article on the recent $5 billion fine imposed on Facebook by the FTC for privacy violations which critics argue was not a severe enough penalty.
Law360 (July 15, 2019, 10:40 PM EDT) — Facebook’s reported deal to pay the Federal Trade Commission a $5 billion fine over privacy violations would shatter agency records yet hardly make a dent in the social media giant’s bottom line, sparking some critics to question the agency’s credibility as an enforcer.
“Five billion dollars may be a record-breaking fine for a privacy case, but it’s still not a meaningful number for Facebook,” Joel Reidenberg, a professor and founder of the Center on Law and Information Policy at Fordham University School of Law, told Law360 on Monday. “Without meaningful structural reform, the decision from the FTC shows a weakness in its ability to serve as an effective privacy enforcement agency.”
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On that front, frustratingly little information was available on Monday. The Republican-led commission voted 3-2 along party lines to approve the record fine, the Wall Street Journal reported late Friday. But details about why the agency’s two Democratic commissioners opposed the deal and whether the settlement includes robust nonmonetary relief, such as requiring Facebook to change its data-handling practices and holding CEO Mark Zuckerberg liable for past or future violations, have yet to trickle out.Without specific measures to hold executives accountable and force Facebook to change its business practices, the $5 billion fine alone would not be enough to give the order teeth, some privacy attorneys, including Reidenberg, said on Monday.