- Facebook recently settled a user-privacy complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for $5B.
- In addition to being an immaterial financial blow (Facebook’s profits topped $22B last year alone), the settlement’s limited forward-going restrictions may cement Facebook’s dominance.
- The settlement lacked limits on how much Facebook can collect or analyze its most valuable resource, data.
- Also, the FTC imposed dated backward-looking punishment on Facebook’s third-party interactions.
- For example, the settlement doesn’t limit Facebook’s current plans to merge messaging apps (eg FB, WhatsApp, Instagram).
