While the new agreement removes a major burden weighing on the Menlo Park, California-based company, it is still grappling with investigations by other authorities in the U.S. and the European Union. European officials are pursuing multiple data-protection investigations, while the city of Washington, D.C., is suing the company over Cambridge Analytica, and the New York State attorney general, Letitia James, has announced that her office is looking into the company’s harvesting of some users’ email contacts.
In addition, a federal judge in California in May declined to dismiss lawsuits brought on behalf of tens of millions of users who blame the company for allowing their private information to be shared in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
The FTC itself is also poised to continue scrutiny of Facebook. As part of a broad agreement with the Justice Department dividing oversight of four of the biggest tech companies, the agency will take responsibility for a potential antitrust investigation into the company. One area of focus is likely to be its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.
And the Justice Department’s antitrust division disclosed plans Tuesday to scrutinize tech platforms following mounting criticism across Washington that the companies have become too big and powerful. The department didn’t specify which firms it would look at but strongly suggested Facebook, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Amazon.com Inc. were in the cross-hairs.
“We have heard that words and apologies are not enough and that we need to show action,” Facebook said. “By resolving both the SEC and the FTC investigations, we hope to close this chapter and turn our focus and resources toward the future.”
--With assistance from Sarah Frier.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.