FB paid billions extra to spare Zuck in Cambridge Analytica probe


New Delhi, Sep 22 (IANS): Facebook conditioned its $5 billion payment to the US Federal Trade Commission to resolve the Cambridge Analytica data leak probe on the agency dropping plans to sue Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, shareholders allege in a lawsuit, Politico reported.

In suits made public Tuesday, two groups of shareholders claimed that members of Facebook's board allowed the company to overpay on its fine in order to protect Zuckerberg, the company's founder and largest shareholder. The complaints, which cite internal discussions among Facebook's board members, were filed in Delaware Court of Chancery last month.

"Zuckerberg, Sandberg, and other Facebook directors agreed to authorize a multi-billion settlement with the FTC as an express quid pro quo to protect Zuckerberg from being named in the FTC's complaint, made subject to personal liability, or even required to sit for a deposition,"one of the suits alleged, as per the report.

The lawsuits show that Facebook has still yet to move beyond the Cambridge Analytica scandal, even as antitrust, alleged privacy failures and other problems plague the company. The Senate Commerce Committee said last week that it was opening a probe into how the company downplayed its own research on how Facebook's photo-sharing app Instagram worsens mental health and body image issues for teens, the report said.

In February 2019, the FTC sent Facebook's lawyers a draft complaint that named both the company and Zuckerberg personally as a defendant, the shareholders said. The FTC also said in court that Facebook's fine would have been closer to $106 million, but the company agreed to the $5billion penalty to avoid having Zuckerberg or Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg deposed and any liability for the CEO, the suit alleged.

"The Board has never provided a serious check on Zuckerberg's unfettered authority," one set of shareholders said. "Instead, it has enabled him, defended him, and paid billions of dollars from Facebook's corporate coffers to make his problems go away."

They also alleged that Zuckerberg and Sandberg both declined to be interviewed by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the firm hired to audit Facebook's privacy compliance as part of a 2012 settlement with the FTC, allowed other managers to provide untrue statements about the company's practices and never provided the board with copies of PwC's audits, the report added.

 

  

Top Stories


Leave a Comment

Title: FB paid billions extra to spare Zuck in Cambridge Analytica probe



You have 2000 characters left.

Disclaimer:

Please write your correct name and email address. Kindly do not post any personal, abusive, defamatory, infringing, obscene, indecent, discriminatory or unlawful or similar comments. Daijiworld.com will not be responsible for any defamatory message posted under this article.

Please note that sending false messages to insult, defame, intimidate, mislead or deceive people or to intentionally cause public disorder is punishable under law. It is obligatory on Daijiworld to provide the IP address and other details of senders of such comments, to the authority concerned upon request.

Hence, sending offensive comments using daijiworld will be purely at your own risk, and in no way will Daijiworld.com be held responsible.