Last Wednesday the FTC issued a $5 billion settlement fee to Facebook, resolving an on going investigation into how the company lost control over massive troves or personal data and how its mishandled communications with the end users. This fine follow calls for technology companies to have better transparency and more accountability for their actions. The level of power and influence these companies have as been ladled as ‘dangerous’ by one of Facebooks Co-founders.
The $5 billion fine is nearly 30 times the FTC's largest-ever civil penalty to date — $168 million, which was levied on Dish Network in 2017
Mark Zuckerberg said, "We've agreed to pay a historic fine, but even more important, we're going to make some major structural changes to how we build products and run this company. We have a responsibility to protect people's privacy. We already work hard to live up to this responsibility, but now we're going to set a completely new standard for our industry."