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FTC’s Facebook Privacy Probe Taking Too Long, Blumenthal Says

FTC’s Facebook Privacy Probe Taking Too Long, Blumenthal Says

(Bloomberg) -- Senator Richard Blumenthal slammed the pace of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s privacy investigation into Facebook Inc., saying it is “inexplicable” that the probe has stretched for more than a year without a fine against the company.

The Connecticut Democrat said in an interview on Capitol Hill Wednesday that he is “flabbergasted and frustrated” that the commission had not resolved the case. The inquiry, which started in March 2018, should have been done in “one-tenth” of the time, he said.

The FTC is investigating whether Facebook violated a 2011 consent decree when the British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, which had ties to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, obtained the data of millions of the site’s users without their permission.

Blumenthal said it’s clear Facebook violated the 2011 order and should be fined more than the current record for a privacy case of $22.5 million.

Both the FTC and Facebook declined to comment on Blumenthal’s criticism.

The social media giant is in talks over the alleged privacy violations that could force the company to pay billions of dollars in a record-breaking settlement, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Last weekend, Facebook’s chief executive officer, Mark Zuckerberg, called for government regulation of four broad areas -- harmful content, election integrity, privacy and data portability. He suggested rules such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation as a common framework.

To contact the reporters on this story: Daniel Stoller in Washington at dstoller1@bloomberg.net;David McLaughlin in Washington at dmclaughlin9@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net, John Harney

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