When Facebook¡¯s Cambridge Analytica scandal came to light, UK authorities attempted to interview CEO Mark Zuckerberg about the incident.
Now, it seems the government has fined the social media platform in pure bureaucratic fashion.
The UK¡¯s Information Commissioner¡¯s office has fined Facebook a grand total of $664,000 for its data privacy transgressions. That¡¯s a paltry sum compared to the company¡¯s nearly $600 billion valuation, one that New York Times¡¯ Kevin Roose calculates is about seven minutes of Facebook¡¯s average revenue in the first quarter of 2018.
Yet somehow, UK Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham believes this sends Facebook a ¡°clear signal¡± that its loose policies on data regulation will not fly. However, Zuckerberg is probably patting himself on the back right now for having escaped with the equivalent of a slap on the wrist.
The $664,000 fine is supposedly the maximum penalty the Commissioner¡¯s office is threatening Facebook with. And this is for letting the data of 87 million users leak. However, thanks to other regions, Facebook could face much higher losses than the UK is promising.?
Under the recently implemented GDPR law in the European Union, Facebook could face fines of up to four percent of its global turnover for similar violations in the future. That¡¯s a whopping $1.9 billion hit. In the US, the penalty is still up in the air, but it¡¯s not promising for the social media giant when it¡¯s garnered the attention of four different federal agencies.
Either way, it¡¯s still a reminder that, years after the incident occured and months after it came to light, Facebook has yet to face any realistic legal and financial penalties.