After an independent review found that Meta had broken its 2020 privacy agreement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the agency proposed a series of restrictions on the company.
The regulations would prevent Facebook's parent company, Meta, from making money from information gathered from users under 18.
The FTC's plan also seeks to limit the company's use of face recognition technology and prevent the release of any new products without the independent privacy assessor's permission.
Notably, in 2019, Facebook paid a $5 billion settlement to the FTC for larger privacy concerns. In 2020, Facebook agreed to implement a privacy program that would have an outside assessor provide privacy reports on Facebook's products.
Repeated Privacy Breaches
According to an NBC News report, this incident is the third time the government has taken action against the firm for suspected privacy abuses.
Samuel Levine, head of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said Facebook continually breaches its privacy commitments. He said the social media giant needs to answer for its failures, believing it has put young users at risk due to the company's recklessness.
Concerns over the social media giant's targeting of youngsters have prompted the FTC to take this step. Instagram, another subsidiary of Meta, had planned to release an app version aimed at children under 13 but abandoned the initiative in late 2021 due to backlash from the public.
'A Political Stunt'
A representative for Meta called the action "a political stunt" and complained that the firm was not given a chance to react to the claims.
The spokesperson said in an emailed statement: "Let's be clear about what the FTC is trying to do: usurp the authority of Congress to set industry-wide standards and instead single out one American company while allowing Chinese companies, like Tik Tok, to operate without constraint on American soil."
In accordance with the conditions of its settlement with the FTC, Meta has reportedly invested heavily in developing and executing a comprehensive privacy program. The representative expressed confidence in the company's ability to successfully challenge this action.
Major Loopholes in Privacy Protections
The FTC said on Wednesday, May 3, that an independent assessor had discovered serious flaws in Facebook's privacy protections that posed serious threats to the public.
A flaw with Messenger Kids' security measures, according to the FTC, meant that children might sometimes have group text chats and group video calls with people who should not have been included in such conversations.
The Verge first reported that a vulnerability discovered in 2019 enabled thousands of outsiders to join group conversations.
Even after promising to stop giving app developers access to consumers' sensitive information, the FTC claims the assessor discovered that the company was still doing so as recently as mid-2020.
CNBC said Meta is given a month to reply to the report's conclusions.
