FTC Chairman Simons: Facebook Settlement Was Best Outcome Given Limited Authority

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joe Simons defended the FTC's $5 billion settlement with Facebook, saying that it was the best deal it could get with limited authority, and calling on Congress to pass comprehensive privacy legislation. Chairman Simons said he was faced with two choices, get an "excellent" settlement, as he suggested this was, or face years of litigation that would likely achieve "far less" relief than the FTC got, which he took pains to outline. He called the settlement the only "real world" choice the agency had. He pointed out that the $5 billion was more than 20 times that of the toughest European settlement under its GDPR privacy regime, and 200 times the previous record for a US settlement. He also said it represented 9% of 2018 revenue, and 23% of 2018 profit. To the criticism that the decision did not require Facebook to change its actual privacy practices, Chairman Simons said the FTC had limited authority over Facebook beyond requiring them to be truthful about those privacy practices.