
Judge approves Facebook's settlement with FTC over ‘stunning’ privacy violations - greenyoda
https://lawandcrime.com/lawsuit/federal-judge-stunned-by-facebooks-unscrupulous-violation-of-the-law-warns-of-much-deeper-problems
======
tsimionescu
It's interesting that the site presenting this story has, by their own
declaration, 382 different marketing-related cookies, which you are required
to accept with no alternatives if you want to browse the site.

I'm not trying to say that they are not entitled to report on FB's privacy
violations or something, they are reporters and it is very good that they are
doing so.

It's just amazing to what extent journalism sites are trying to monetize. Old
newspapers could only dream of the kind of advertising revenue that sites like
this probably have.

~~~
x3blah
"Old newspapers could only dream of the kind of advertising revenue that sites
like this probably have."

Actually they are struggling for ad revenue hence all the third party crud in
their web pages.

Many of them allege that companies like Facebook and Google have "stolen"
their ad revenue. Some complained of Craigslist taking away their classified
ads business.

Old newspapers, particularly local ones, are going out of business thanks to
competition from ad-supported websites that operate as middlemen for news
delivered via internet, not to mention the impact of Covid-19.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_newspapers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_newspapers)

[https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2020/here-are-the-
news...](https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2020/here-are-the-newsroom-
layoffs-furloughs-and-closures-caused-by-the-coronavirus/)

~~~
bobthepanda
> Old newspapers are going out of business thanks to competition from ad-
> supported websites that operate as middlemen for news delivered via
> internet.

And when the newspaper goes out of business, will the aggregators just sprout
newsrooms to replace their free sources of information? I doubt it.

Aggregation of news only works if there's news to aggregate. We have already
seen local and hyperlocal news wither on the vine, and Google hasn't exactly
expressed interest in sending someone down to the local courthouse or county
meeting.

~~~
duru3b3jr
You're arguing a different point than the person you're responding to. You're
correct of course, on the point that aggregators only function so long as they
have content to aggregate. But that doesn't mean that aggregators don't also
promote further market consolidation. I don't think many people are arguing
that publications like AP, Bloomberg, NYT, Reuters, Fox News (I know I know,
but you can't pretend they aren't a major org), CNN, etc. are dying. What's
dying is /local/ newspapers that might not offer robust world views but
nonetheless often represent the most comprehensive source for stories of local
significance like police controversies, local government corruption, community
happenings, etc.

~~~
bobthepanda
NYT has flirted with death before. The Chicago Tribune went through the
bankruptcy wringer. Just this year the owner of several regional newspapers,
also the second-largest newspaper chain in the country, declared bankruptcy:
[https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/13/media/mcclatchy-
bankruptcy/in...](https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/13/media/mcclatchy-
bankruptcy/index.html) The first biggest was merely acquired.

AP isn't a publication, it's a co-op association that syndicates stories, so
it actually also suffers from the aggregators' problems.

------
droffel
In the absense of capital punishment for corporations, fines can and will be
seen as merely the cost of doing business. It feels like the only way to
address this is by holding the decision makers (executives) responsible, but
that would require piercing the corporate veil[1], which has disappointingly
low precedent in the US

[1]Edit: piercing the veil refers to holding shareholders responsible, which
is a different (but related) way of keeping companies accountable. Thanks for
the clarification wnoise.

~~~
twomoretime
>In the absense of capital punishment for corporations

That's an interesting analogy that I've never considered, given we treat
corporations as personlike entities. Why don't we have a capital punishment
equivalent?

Perhaps our rules regarding social harm are too loose. But I'm not sure that I
would trust a government, especially our government, to make and enforce the
right rules.

In any case our legislation desperately needs to catch up to the tech.
Communication has changed exponentially for the last few hundred years -
printing, radio, telephone, television, cell phone, dialup, cable, smartphone,
gigabit...many of our laws are simply not written for an era where
decentralized communication of this bandwidth and latency is possible. Article
is case in point.

~~~
jacquesm
Corporate charters can be revoked. It doesn't happen because of the jobs
factor but in theory it can be.

~~~
dragonwriter
We punish corporations in ways which adversely impact jobs all the time, even
though we don't do charter revocation.

~~~
jacquesm
True, but once you start applying that at the level of Facebook the jobs
factor starts to really add weight.

Personally I'd much prefer executives to become automatically liable for
wrongdoing by their companies.

------
justinclift
> In other words, this had better be the end of Facebook’s shenanigans, or the
> FTC won’t be the only one to drop the hammer.

Pretty much no-one expects this to be the end of Facebook's "shenanigans".

So, what's suitable for the next go around?

------
antjanus
it's frustrating. 5 billion for a fine over the course of 8 years of
operation?

They made $17 billion _this quarter_.

~~~
greenyoda
The judge did threaten Facebook with harsher treatment if they ever ended up
in his court again.

From the end of the court decision:

> _The Court ends by noting that under the Stipulated Order it retains
> jurisdiction over this matter, including to enforce its terms. See
> Stipulated Order at 5. In the event that the parties return to this Court
> because the United States alleges—once again—that Facebook has reneged on
> its promises and continued to violate the law or the terms of the amended
> administrative order, the Court may not apply quite the same deference to
> the terms of a proposed resolution. As the D.C. Circuit has explained, a
> district court must be especially deferential “when the proposed decree
> comes to a district judge in the first instance as a settlement between the
> parties.” Microsoft, 56 F.3d at 1461. But, on the other hand, when “a
> district judge has administered a consent decree for some period of time,”
> and is therefore likely more familiar with the relevant context, “the lack
> of an initial trial is, at least marginally, less of an inhibition” when
> weighing the appropriateness of a proposed remedy._ [1]

[1]
[https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6876914/4-23-20-F...](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6876914/4-23-20-Facebook-
Order.pdf) (linked in the first sentence of the article)

~~~
antjanus
The problem is that threatening doesn't mean much. The $5b isn't much in the
grand scheme of things, and I doubt we'll be as "lucky" to get a judge that
feels similarly next time.

------
tsherr
If you want corporations like Facebook to care about breaking the law, you
need start handing out jail time for the CEOs. Fining a significant percentage
of revenue might work, but they'd probably cook the books.

~~~
Gibbon1
Reminds me years ago I stumbled on an essay by Richard Posner ex Chief Justice
of the 7th Circuit. In it he discussed his belief that.

a) The only way to keep poor people in line is the threat of prison.

b) Middle class people can be kept in line by the threat of fines.

c) However the wealthy are kept in line by the threat of losing their good
reputation.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Posner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Posner)

~~~
ceejayoz
This is why some countries do income-based fines. Get a speeding ticket in
some Scandinavian countries and you may be on the hook for six figures if
you’re rich.

~~~
cosmodisk
I used to live in Stockholm. Every now and then,on our way to the water, we
used cross Östermalm-a pretty expensive area. One day,we noticed Mercedes SLS
outside an apartment block. The guy must have been one of the earliest
adopters,as it was only released for sales a few weeks earlier. After seeing
the car for some time,one day it was gone.Oh,well,maybe the owner moved
somewhere else or he sold it,etc.Turns out,this happened instead:
www.motor1.com/news/23266/1-million-speeding-fine-in-switzerland-for-swedish-
sls-owner/amp/

And the Swiss apparently keep your car until you fork out the fine..

------
novalis78
There is no greater privacy violation than the BSA act. Can’t wait for that to
be on the table of some judge one day.

------
x3blah
Compare HN title with actual titles given by the author/publisher:

"og:title" content="Federal Judge Stunned by Facebook's `Unscrupulous'
Violation of the Law, Warns of Much Deeper Problems"

<title>Judge Timothy Kelly Stunned by Facebook's Violation of Law

One could argue the HN title suggests the important point of the news story is
that the settlement was accepted despite "stunning" privacy violations.

One could argue the author's titles suggest the important point of the news
story is that a federal judge was "stunned" by Facebook's violations when
approving the FTC settlement.

~~~
dang
The article and especially the title seem a bit tendentious to me, so I
googled to try to find another story that quoted the same judge's remarks. I
found
[https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/350552/facebo...](https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/350552/facebooks-5-billion-
settlement-with-ftc-over-st.html) and almost changed the URL to that, but
decided in the end to adapt that title instead. Clearly the news here is not
just what the judge said during a ruling, but the ruling itself.

~~~
x3blah
The ideal post then might be a link to the ruling itself:

[https://epic.org/privacy/facebook/epic2019-challenge/US-v-
Fa...](https://epic.org/privacy/facebook/epic2019-challenge/US-v-Facebook-
Opinion-Approving-Deal.pdf)

Through an FOIA request, EPIC found there were over 29,000 outstanding
complaints to the FTC against Facebook since the 2012 Consent Order.

[https://epic.org/privacy/facebook/epic2019-challenge/](https://epic.org/privacy/facebook/epic2019-challenge/)

