Facebook fined record $5,000,000,000 for breaching privacy
The vote by the Federal Trade Commission will be reviewed by the Justice Department (Picture: Getty)..
Facebook is set to receive a record-breaking $5 billion fine after an investigation into the tech giants repeated failures to protect its users privacy.
The Federal Trade Commission passed a motion 3-2 to fine the tech giant, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Its decision broke party lines, with the Republican majority voicing support of the fine, while Democratic commissioners expressed objections.
The next stage of the process will be handled by the Justice Departments civil division, though for now it remains unclear how long it will take to finalize.
The vote will be reviewed by the Justice Department according to WSJ sources, as required by protocol, but its unlikely the verdict will be reversed.
The exact details of the settlement remain largely unknown, except for the figure which is believed to be in the region of $5 billion (£3.9 billion).
If finalized, the fine will become the largest ever levied on a tech company.
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However, it wont make much of a dent in Facebooks reserves, which registered more than $56 billion in revenue last year alone.
But the deal may also include government restrictions on how Facebook handles and regulates user privacy.
Investors did not seem concerned by the news, with Facebook shares finishing the day up 1.8 per cent, at $204.87.
The FTCs investigation into Facebook began more than a year ago, after the data of millions of users of the social media site ended up in the possession of Cambridge Analytica, a firm assisting with Donald Trumps 2016 presidential campaign.