(Photo by Simon via Pixabay)

The Federal Trade Commission announced last Wednesday that the Menlo Park-based social media giant Facebook will pay a record-breaking $5 billion penalty for violating users’ privacy.

The penalty is part of a settlement Facebook made to settle charges that the company violated a 2012 FTC order “by deceiving users about their ability to control the privacy of their personal information,” FTC officials wrote in a news release July 24.

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Dan McMenamin is the managing editor at Bay City News, directing daily news coverage of the 12-county greater Bay Area. He has worked for BCN since 2008 and has been managing editor since 2014 after previously serving as BCN’s San Francisco bureau reporter. A UC Davis graduate, he came to BCN after working for a newspaper and nonprofit in the Davis area. He handles staffing, including coaching of our interns, day-to-day coverage decisions and management of the newswire.