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FTC May Hold Zuckerberg Personally Responsible For Facebook Privacy Failures (arstechnica.com) 94

Posted by BeauHD from the heightened-oversight dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Federal Trade Commission officials are discussing whether to hold Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally accountable for Facebook's privacy failures, according to reports by The Washington Post and NBC News. Facebook has been trying to protect Zuckerberg from that possibility in negotiations with the FTC, the Post wrote. Federal regulators investigating Facebook are "exploring his past statements on privacy and weighing whether to seek new, heightened oversight of his leadership," the Post reported, citing anonymous sources who are familiar with the FTC discussions. "The discussions about how to hold Zuckerberg accountable for Facebook's data lapses have come in the context of wide-ranging talks between the Federal Trade Commission and Facebook that could settle the government's more than year-old probe," the Post wrote.

According to NBC, FTC officials are "discussing whether and how to hold Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg personally accountable for the company's history of mismanaging users' private data." However, NBC said its sources "wouldn't elaborate on what measures are specifically under consideration." According to the Post, one idea raised during the probe "could require [Zuckerberg] or other executives to certify the company's privacy practices periodically to the board of directors." But it's not clear how likely the FTC is to target Zuckerberg in a final settlement, and "Facebook has fought fiercely to shield Zuckerberg as part of the negotiations, one of the sources familiar with the probe said," the Post wrote.
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FTC May Hold Zuckerberg Personally Responsible For Facebook Privacy Failures More

FTC May Hold Zuckerberg Personally Responsible For Facebook Privacy Failures

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  • Not a facebook fan, but...

    I wonder how they will justify that. From what I've heard that protection is fairly good, and AFAIK he's not done anything criminal.

    To avoid it, I would think they would have to word any agreement as "The current CEO", not "Mark Zuckerberg".

    • He testified before Congress that Americans no longer care about and have no expectation of privacy. That's one count of perjury at the very least.

    • While I know Trump posts are a hot button. He just happens to be the one in charge of the FCC. And it's his stated Standard Operating procedure to start every negotiation with the other person on their back foot. He puts Facebook in a jam first, then he asks for something. Establish the precedent, and re-apply to NBC's boradcast lisecence. then the rest of the media.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by msauve ( 701917 )
      "AFAIK he's not done anything criminal."

      EVERYONE has done something criminal. It's just a matter of prosecutors searching through enough laws.

      More seriously, the term "crime" is ambiguous, usually used to mean something which can be punished by the government. So in this case, it's a bit circular. It's not uncommon for companies to be punished, less common for their leaders to be. I'd think that since Zuck is not only deeply involved in daily decisions and holds majority voting rights, it wouldn't be part

      • I don't think that 'a person' can actually be two (or more) people?

        If so, that would cause some measure of conniptions amongst the legal fraternity!

    • "agreement" is the key word (Score:4, Interesting)

      by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Friday April 19, 2019 @09:25PM (#58462422) Journal

      If they went to trial and the court set a punishment under law, the executives would be personally liable under circumstances and not be personally liable under other circumstances. (But the government is setting it up so they will be liable in the future).

      A trial at this time is big risk for both sides, so this will probably be resolved with an agreement, something both sides can accept rather than a risky and expensive trial. Since it's an agreement, Zuck could agree to dye his hair purple, or anything else. Absent any agreement, a judge probably couldn't order him to dye his hair purple, but as part of a negotiated agreement, anything is fair game.

      The government COULD demand that any agreement (to avoid a trial) have whatever penalties for Zuck. But they won't - yet. They are trying to have this agreement say "if Facebook violates it, Zuck will be personally liable" and "Zuck's actions re policy must be reviewed by others, who can also be held accountable if the agreement is violated." Then they can certainly hold Zuck personally accountable for any future violation - because he agreed that they could.

      Similarly, because Elon Musk is not the careful type who thinks carefully before he speaks, when he violatee the law part of the agreement is that the company must have grown-ups supervising his public statements.

    • Re:Piercing the corporate veil? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by bjwest ( 14070 ) on Friday April 19, 2019 @10:37PM (#58462652)

      I wonder how they will justify that

      As of April 2018, the Zuck owned 53.3% of the voting rights in the company. How can he NOT be held personally responsible for anything Facebook does?

      • Because many of the decisions that the corporation Facebook makes are not subject to voting by the shareholders, but by voting of the board of directors, maybe?

        Thus holding a majority of shareholder voting rights means nothing to the day to day running of the company.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by bjwest ( 14070 )
          And those on the board of directors are voted in by, and can be removed and replaced at the whim of, the shareholders. Zuckerburg has complete control of Facebook, and those that "control" it do so at his behest.

    • https://www.thebalancesmb.com/... [thebalancesmb.com]

      In the case of fraud, in which the corporation was found to be a sham that was set up for the purpose of carrying on fraudulent deals or for fraudulent purposes

      Ever look at FB's Terms Of Service ?

    • > I wonder how they will justify that.

      Zuckerberg has 53% voting control of Facebook. Since he's in control of the company, he's responsible for what it does. He's a programmer, and it is a software-based company. If he claims he's "not aware" of privacy problems, that's just negligence on his part, which you can be fined for.

    • This an end-around dislodging the tick that is Mark Zuckerberg from control of Facebook. People are starting to get miffed that he is controlling a "public" company. How is it public if he can out vote anything and stack the board? Bananna facsim run amok.
  • Cares that someone sold how many cat videos you posted this month. When you don't care. We're a blip on the universe's timeline and yet somehow because some evil company makes money off of what we do or how we use their service they deserve full attention and scrutiny. This is why future service providers are all going to have to remain anonymous and remove central control and put it on tor/blockchain. It simply won't be worth the government intervention that is coming fast and hard to try to make a profit

    • Wow, I am in awe of just how breathtakingly ignorant you are.

      You honestly think this is about f--king cat videos? Facebook is hovering any and every piece of data they can get their hands on. That includes your personal details. Your personal connections. What you purchase.

      And it doesn't stop at you. It also does the same thing with everybody else, and then combines the results to make connections you would never dream of. They will figure out you convinced your neighbour to buy a new lawnmower. Faceb

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jwymanm ( 627857 )
        Tell me where the damage is so far. Where did Facebook touch you sir? They sell the data to target advertising. This data is collectable no matter if you use Facebook or not because it is PUBLIC FRIGGING KNOWLEDGE. Everything we share that we do is public. If we use apps in a certain way or search for certain terms someone makes a profit by sharing that fact. There is nothing wrong with collecting this data and selling it legally on the market. The problem is with illegal usage of this data. Ie insider trad
  • The limited liability corporation can not go to jail.
  • let me laugh even harder. No, Zuckberg has long since accumulated enough cash to enter the realm of the ruling elite. And here in America we do not spill the blood of Kings. Even Bernie Madoff was doing fine until he scammed a few real billionaires.

    This is less about justice and more about fund raising. He hasn't greased enough palms with "free speech".

  • Facebook's business model is to extract as much data (their product) as possible from their livestock (end users) for sale to their customers: advertisers. Whatever happens to Fuckerberg, the company will continue doing the same shit. Going after him personally is some combination of vendetta and scapegoating. It's probably no coincidence that he structured the voting stock in such a way that he can't be ousted by the board.

    • A company is not a miraculous symbolic entity that exists on its own. It was created by it's creator, grown by it's creator. Even when there's a board, they only have so much say, especially when Zuckerberg is majority stockholder. He is the face, body, and mind of Facebook.

      I don't see how you can punish zuckerberg and not have that result in sweeping changes in Facebook's business model.

  • Seriously, fines won't work, only jail time.

    • Oh, if you let him choose between jail time or 90% of his estate seized, he might prefer to sleep in a prison. For these irregularities, fines should be a sufficient deterrent.

  • Here's an idea (Score:3)

    by darkitecture ( 627408 ) on Friday April 19, 2019 @07:56PM (#58462180)
    Here's an idea.

    Let's make higher-level corporate positions that are eligible for bonus above a certain threshold be somewhat responsible. For them to receive their bonus, they have to sign an agreement that if there's ever any wrongdoing, financial or criminal punishment, that they will have to be partially responsible. If any giant corporation gets hit with a fine, it means virtually nothing because corporate entities absorb even the largest fines with a few days profit. And 'the public' feel like justice hasn't been served because no actual people have been held responsible for these fundamentally human decisions/mistakes.

    Imagine if there was a $200 million dollar judgement against Facebook and every person who got a bonus over say, $500,000 at Facebook had to pay a pro-rata amount of that fine. That'd sting the pockets of those whose job ought to come with the responsibility to own up to those mistakes. If engineers can go to jail for fucking up the design of a bridge, why can't people with corporate responsibility be held accountable too. If there's a criminal punishment, congrats you signed up to receive your million dollar bonus the last three years, looks like you'll have to spend 6 months in federal prison along with a dozen other management-level coworkers that also received a big bonus. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Don't want to ever risk going to jail or being fined? Then you don't get that ridiculous bonus or golden parachute.

    This is just me spitballing but I'm sure if anybody spent more than five minutes typing out a post, they could polish it up.

  • Since he has complete voting control, he is uniquely responsible for the decade-long continuing failures to protect privacy and failures to act in the face of multiple opportunities. Lock him up.

  • Uh-Huh (Score:3)

    by nehumanuscrede ( 624750 ) on Friday April 19, 2019 @10:00PM (#58462562)

    Are they also going to hold the CEO of Equifax to the same standards ?
    ( Or ANY of the CEO's of the too numerous to count companies with privacy destroying data breaches for that matter )

    Doubtful.

  • Yes, yes, do it, lock Zuckerberg up!

  • Class B Stock (Score:5, Informative)

    by sdinfoserv ( 1793266 ) on Saturday April 20, 2019 @02:52AM (#58463068)
    Zuckerberg owns (c) 18% of FB stock, but his stock is class B - which grants 10 votes per share. His ownership of "super stock" means the company board of directors and general stock holders can't do anything with the company he doesn't personally approve. Ergo: the company does his bidding and always will so long as he remains in control of his class B shares. Consequently, since the company does his personally bidding, he must be held personally responsible for corporate transgressions.

  • good (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Good.

    Now apply that to equifax ceo and Nikki Haley.

  • Yeah they do hold people personally responsible sometimes... the typical punishment is called the "wrist slap".

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