Facebook in hot water as the FTC examines possible violation of 2011 consent decree (VIDEO)
The other day, we told you about a company called Cambridge Analytica. According to the New York Times, the consulting firm, hired by the Trump campaign in 2016, got its hands on as many as 50 million Facebook profiles without permission. The latter was used to create psychological profiles of voters. The Trump campaign employed the data to determine the areas of the country where it needed to place more ads or arrange for a personal appearance by the candidate.
Whether or not the information was obtained by Cambridge Analytica via a data breach, it seems that the FTC believes that it might have been received by them illegally. Today and tomorrow, hearings will be held in Washington. The FTC will try to determine whether the actions constituted a violation of a 2011 consent decree signed by Facebook. The consent decree was written to protect the personal information and data of Facebook subscribers by allowing the use of this information only with permission from the subscriber.
"We are aware of the issues that have been raised but cannot comment on whether we are investigating. We take any allegations of violations of our consent decrees very seriously."-FTC spokesman
Cambridge Analytica reportedly still has most of the data, and was able to match 30 million Facebook users to other records and create profiles of them. The consulting firm, its co-founder Wylie, current CEO Alexander Nix and Russian-American professor Kogan have all been suspended by Facebook. The company was spanked hard on Wall Street where it lost 7% of its value on Monday and another 4% Tuesday afternoon. CEO Mark Zuckerberg saw his net worth drop by almost $5 billion as the social networking company's market cap fell under $500 billion.
Things that are NOT allowed: