Meta Vows to Fight as FTC Proposes New Privacy-Related Restrictions

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has proposed several restrictions on Meta.

Saying the firm has violated a 2020 privacy order issued when it was still called Facebook, the regulator has proposed a blanket prohibition against monetizing data of children and teens under 18 and a pause on the launch of new products and services, the FTC said in a Wednesday (May 3) press release.

The FTC also proposed extending compliance to any companies Meta acquires or merges with, limiting Meta’s future uses of facial recognition technology and strengthening existing privacy program provisions from the 2020 order, according to the release.

The proposed changes to the 2020 order would apply to Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus and other Meta services.

“Facebook has repeatedly violated its privacy promises,” Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in the release. “The company’s recklessness has put young users at risk, and Facebook needs to answer for its failures.”

Reached for comment by PYMNTS, a Meta spokesperson emailed a statement in which the company said the FTC’s move is “a political stunt.”

“Despite three years of continual engagement with the FTC around our agreement, they provided no opportunity to discuss this new, totally unprecedented theory,” Meta said in the statement. “Let’s be clear about what the FTC is trying to do: usurp the authority of Congress to set industry-wide standards and instead single out one American company while allowing Chinese companies, like TikTok, to operate without constraint on American soil.”

The 2020 privacy order followed an FTC investigation into Facebook’s alleged violation of a 2012 consent decree in which the company pledged it would be transparent in how it used data.

In its Wednesday press release, the FTC said Meta has failed to fully comply with the order. For example, the company has retained gaps and weaknesses in its privacy program; continued to give app developers access to users’ private information in cases in which it had said it would cut off that access; and misrepresented the parental controls on its Messenger Kids product.

The FTC said in the release that it has asked Meta to respond in 30 days and that Wednesday’s action marks the beginning of the proceedings.

In the statement provided to PYMNTS, Meta said: “FTC Chair Lina Khan’s insistence on using any measure — however baseless — to antagonize American business has reached a new low. We have spent vast resources building and implementing an industry-leading privacy program under the terms of our FTC agreement. We will vigorously fight this action and expect to prevail.”