Confirmation of a US Government Probe Pushes Facebook's Market Loss To $90 Billion (qz.com)

The US Federal Trade Commission has confirmed that it is investigating Facebook over its privacy practices, following recent revelations that data firm Cambridge Analytica harvested and exploited tens of millions of users' data without their permission. From a report: Facebook's stock renewed its downward slide, bringing the company's total loss of market value to around $90 billion since the scandal broke 10 days ago. "The FTC takes very seriously recent press reports raising substantial concerns about the privacy practices of Facebook. Today, the FTC is confirming that it has an open non-public investigation into these practices," said Tom Pahl, acting director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, in a statement.

Comments

No

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook's made-up "market value" went down. *POTENTIAL* money was lost. No actual money was lost. RIAA math at work again.

Re:No

[easyTree]

Have FB suddenly changed business model? If not, why the sudden concern?

Re: No

[Anonymous Coward]

This is news now because Facebook may have violated their published privacy policy after telling the FTC and the regulators in the EU they wouldn't.

At the very least it appears they did no audit or enforcement of restrictions they placed on users of their API.

I hope Facebook had some good hold harmless terms in their agreements with the API users and use them to pass some of any costs along to those developers who abused their authorized access.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but it seems that the Cambridge Analytica mess spilled over and raised more than a dozen eyebrows, and privacy concerns in the UK and here, as well. The authorities have gone into the CA office buildings before any data could be hosed.

The Reg https://theregister.co.uk/ has described how details and metadata collected would even show how much information, when someone who put FB messenger on an android phone would unwittingly list your phone and text, without you explicitly giving FB this opt-in, simply because your contact had that FB/Android combo.

Re: No

[datavirtue]

Facebook is slinging so much data there is no way they have anything under control. There are probably tens of thousands of people who have access to it--the full set. ...and hundreds of thousands who have retained data sets that were supposed to be destroyed. A true First-World disaster.

Re:No

[hey!]

Just because the derivatives market was a disaster doesn't mean you make any kind of valid point by comparing something else you despise to it. What's going on with Facebook is entirely different.

The problem with the derivatives market was a common anti-pattern in human behavior: something that works really well for an individual but fails miserably when everyone tries to do it. Companies used derivative contracts as a kind of speculation insurance, allowing hem to invest more aggressively, treating securities as if they were less risky than they actually were. This is great if it's just your company doing it, but if everyone does it, everyone starts acting as if that risk has simply disappeared. Consequently the market assumed a lot more risk than it should have because it was squirreled away where nobody could see it, through layers of opaque financial instruments. In hindsight the result was inevitable.

Facebook's valuation is something entirely different. Stock prices are based on peoples cumulative beliefs about the future, and because people are valuable, stocks often prove over- or under- priced. It's ordinary human fallibility. Fifteen year ago buying Amazon at $25 a share would seem to a speculation Puritan to be pure foolishness; where were the technical fundamentals to support that price? Amazon's stock value was based on peoples' confidence in its goal of achieving total worldwide retail domination, something that seems less far-fetched today.

Given the bad news, people are feeling less optimistic about Facebook's future, but it's still just an opinion.

Re: No

[grep -v '.*' *]

have retained data sets that were supposed to be destroyed

Can you imagine the SIZE of all of those PST files?

(Oh, so it's just me -- nobody's an Exchange/Outlook admin anymore??)

Re: No

[PixetaledPikachu]

have retained data sets that were supposed to be destroyed

Can you imagine the SIZE of all of those PST files? (Oh, so it's just me -- nobody's an Exchange/Outlook admin anymore??)

I do. Storage is cheap so we use OST instead PST

Re: No

[Maritz]

No one is accusing them of violating them TOS.

You sound smart. Facebook claim Cambridge Analytica violated their TOS.

Now that the propaganda houses are claiming that Trump is terrible because he used this same data channels as Obama, suddenly everyone is upset because MSM tells them to be upset.

'everything that differs from my view is propaganda'

It's actually quite different. You either choose not to see the difference because you're biased, or you're a stupid cunt. Almost certainly both.

Two factors here are that people are really fucking stupid.

It's painfully, painfully true.

Re: No

[Maritz]

Yep. For a decade it was always "It's just a private company, bro!" or "You agreed to it in the ToS, if you don't like it just don't use facebook!" until it helped Trump. Then it instantly became the scandal of the century.

Normally this would annoy me, but facebook's getting fucked so I'll overlook it this time. Only worry is this will now leave Google alone in sole, incontestable control of the Big Brother-ing industry.

Did Obama's campaign scrape profiles of 50 million completely unrelated individuals who happened to be friends of people who took an online personality test?

I'll answer for you. No.

The reason you think it's the same is: you're a stupid cunt.

Re: No

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

I haven't looked into it much, so maybe you can help: what is the difference between Obama's use of FB and Trump's?

Re: No

[Camarillo Brillo]

DeVoss is only helping to make public schools worse, not the halls of education for the rich. Preppies may still have access to proper philosophical and math tutors and learn to think for themselves.

Re:No

[unixisc]

Facebook's made-up "market value" went down. *POTENTIAL* money was lost. No actual money was lost. RIAA math at work again.

Precisely! How does one do the public valuation of what's simply a glorified website?

It's Back Up

[sexconker]

There were tons of reports of it tanking again today early this morning. Yet minutes after those reports hit, the stock rallied.

It's basically flat for the day. Google and Twitter are up significantly.

I'd like for nothing more than all 3 to tank and die, but it's not happening unless Congress makes it happen. And Congress regulating them will simple establish them further, as competition will be much harder.

Re: It's Back Up

[pdms]

I agree,

Re:It's Back Up

[Anonymous Coward]

Rallied perhaps, by the Zuckmeister himself, as damage control, pending similar investigations in Europe, where privacy is taken very, very seriously, especially when it is not to be monetized.

Full page ads with Mark Z's apologies in the US papers, as well as overseas.

And a poll with the missing caption, as the "cherry on top"

Re:It's Back Up

[datavirtue]

I wonder if they are going to get a real CEO now? The board in most companies would definitely end their CEO for this.

Re:It's Back Up

[datavirtue]

You can't apologize out of this. Council should have an effective gag order in place.

Re:It's Back Up

[datavirtue]

Way too many plebs use the "service." If every intelligent person left FB (went dark) right now it would trundle on as if nothing happened.

Re:It's Back Up

[PeterGM]

We can, you're absolutely right... but it takes informed knowledge, effort, and motivation to do so.

Any combination of those things are widely lacking in the world of the average Internet user.

I used to think it would be a good thing if everyone used the Internet. I've never missed 1996 as much as I do now, and not just for my hairline.

Re:It's Back Up

[pots]

And Congress regulating them will simple establish them further, as competition will be much harder.

You say this as though regulatory lock-in is the only possible result of regulation. Use your imagination a little, instead of just assuming. If congress were to simply implement some limitations on the collection and storage of data it would devastate their business model (except for Twitter, who doesn't seem to have any mechanism for making money) while giving them no advantages over other startups that they don't already have. No lock-in.

If congress were to slap them on the wrist and say that they could do whatever they want as long as they buried some wavier down deep inside of a three hundred page click-through EULA, then all of their potential competitors would have to spend their inadequate resources on hiring lawyers to write long EULAs. That is lock-in. It's not inevitable, but it can happen.

Re:It's Back Up

[ColdWetDog]

#TightenTheTinfoil

Re: It's Back Up

[Camarillo Brillo]

Hmmmm, interesting conspiracy theories, but do you have any references for these claims ?

Ridiculous valuation

[innocent_white_lamb]

How many businesses could lose $100 billion dollars and still be operating?

Obviously the valuation of this sort of thing is greatly overblown and has nothing to do with real world work or returns.

Re:Ridiculous valuation

[belthize1072]

Think of it like a horse race. It's not that the horse is slower, just a lot of people think the horse fractious in the gate and doubt the ginger beer trick is going to help.

Re:Ridiculous valuation

[thegarbz]

How many businesses could lose $100 billion dollars and still be operating?

How many businesses have 1/4 of the population of the entire world as their user base?

Don't underestimate the sheer monster that Facebook has become, and based on what we know about how much information they have on us is that value really so surprising?

That's without getting into any discussion about what Sharemarket value actually means for a business (hint: nothing, during the GOM oil spill BP was valued by shareholders as less than the cost of the assets + oil sitting in storage which is absurd for a company that had healthy cashflow)

As usuall missleading headlines

[Dorianny]

Facebook Corp. hasn't lost anything. Those shares were sold or given away already. The holders of Facebook stock lost a couple of % of the paper value

Re:As usuall missleading headlines

[mspohr]

Yes, it's the stockholders who have lost. From a high near $200 in early Feb to $160 today, they've lost 20%... but only if they bought at the high and sold today. For most people, it's just paper losses (or smaller gains).

Boohoo

[DarkRookie]

They have $90,000,000,000.
Why should I ever feel sorry for this company.

Double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

It is too bad they won't go after Equifax to the same degree they are going after Facebook.

Re:Double standards

[BlueStrat]

It is too bad they won't go after Equifax to the same degree they are going after Facebook.

If the Trump campaign had some link to Equifax then they, too, would be under the gun.

The ONLY reason Facebook is being trashed is because the Left thinks FB/Zucky helped Trump knowingly or unknowingly. That's it. That's the only reason. The people screaming for investigations had no problem with Democrats using FB data for election demographics purposes, nor did they have any real issues with FB's invasiveness regarding privacy prior other than as a minor side-issue they had to make the right noises about.

I'm happy to see more people becoming aware of the importance of privacy, but the hypocrisy surrounding this shitshow is over 9000.

Strat

Re:Double standards

[thegarbz]

The people screaming for investigations had no problem with Democrats using FB data for election demographics purposes

The people making this claim don't see some very big and critical differences between the two cases, not the least of which involves a lack of foreign 3rd party entities influencing elections in the democrat's case. The only people who think this is about Facebook itself are those who have a partisan axe to grind.

Hint: It wasn't Facebook's headquarters that was raided.

Re:Double standards

[DRJlaw]

The ONLY reason Facebook is being trashed is because the Left thinks FB/Zucky helped Trump knowingly or unknowingly. That's it. That's the only reason. The people screaming for investigations had no problem with Democrats using FB data for election demographics purposes, nor did they have any real issues with FB's invasiveness regarding privacy prior other than as a minor side-issue they had to make the right noises about.

Yes -- there's no difference between openly using Facebook's own advertising tools to microtarget voters and exfiltrating the "social graphs" of 50 million people to a third party (but just one, we promise) by getting 300 thousand people to take a "personality test" run by an academic because nonacademic entities were prohibited from downloading raw graph information from Facebook.

It's totally a double standard, and the differences in what happened are not important at all.

That's it. That's the only reason.

In your feeble mind.

What surprises me

[jetkust]

I always assumed people using Facebook didn't particularly care about what happens with their data, so I'm no sure who all of a sudden is outraged. I assumed it was way worse than this. Plus why focus on Facebook. There are data brokerage companies out there that are probably doing way creepier things than this.

Re:What surprises me

[srichard25]

No one was upset until Trump used the data. Obama was a modern-day genius when he used the data, and thousands of unknown companies having the data was fine. But Trump using it is what caused some people to go bonkers.

Proper evaluation

[dremon]

To proper evaluate the market value (or, rather, the importance for the global society) simply imagine the consequences of sudden disappearance of the business.

What happens if those overblown tech giants (Facebook, Twitter, Uber, Apple, whatever shit) cease to exist? NOTHING. Some moderate annoyance and shit on the fan for a relatively large group of people. The world moves on, many won't even notice. "Oh dear, we won't get a brand new iAssScratcher this year, what a drama!".

Now, how about John Deere? Market cap 10 times less than the Facepalm, their agricultural machines work probably on half of the Earth's fields. Imagine the consequences of that being vanished.
Or Gazprom, also 10 times less than the bunch of PHP scripts, what happens when there comes no gas anymore, a major fucking blow to the little dream castle of greenpeacers and also huge impact on the whole civilization.

NSA

[Zorro]

Quietly acquired by "No Such Agency" exists.

Enjoy the Schadenfreude while it lasts

[edtice1559]

Stock prices always rebound after these things once the inquiry is over and the punishment turns out to be nothing more than a slap on the wrist. All this stuff does is transfer wealth from those who panic sell to those who opportunistically buy.

just a paper cut

[epine]

Yes, it's the stockholders who have lost. From a high near $200 in early Feb to $160 today, they've lost 20%... but only if they bought at the high and sold today. For most people, it's just paper losses (or smaller gains).

The stockholders would include almost all of the management, most of the employees, some of the contractors, many key venture capital relationships, and god-knows how many potential activist shareholders, plus speculative financial shops that might be substantially leveraged; 10% is then easily 100%, and 20% could amount to -100% (subject to a hedge floor) should Facebook's price remain depressed.

Ferengi Rule of Disposition #7: Nothing elicits a bigger yawn that someone else's margin call.

Monty Python-The Black Knight

Hmm, much depends on whether the severed arm leaps back up and reunites itself with the brave knight, or remains there decomposing among the dead leaves.

You say that like it's a bad thing

[rsilvergun]

Facebook's business model here is selling your data to anyone who'll pay so they can manipulate you into doing things you otherwise wouldn't want to do. These aren't old school marketing pitches where they tell you why the product/candidate/proposition is so great. These are fine targeted propaganda campaigns where use your prejudices and peccadilloes to push your buttons.

I'm all for putting a stop to competition in that fast growing field.

#deletefacebook worked for me

[imidan]

I just finished deleting my Facebook account. I downloaded their data on me just to look at it, first. Luckily, I never told Facebook very much about me, never installed the app on my phone, rarely logged in, and clear cookies every time I close my browser, so their data on me looks pretty sparse.

I originally created the account because of a scare article suggesting that someone nefarious might create a Facebook account on my behalf and then post bad stuff there. Unlikely, I know, but it seemed a trivial precaution to take. I kept the account because of inertia, and because people (including some employers) started thinking it was weird if you didn't have a Facebook account. Now, I can use the cover of #deletefacebook to explain why I have no profile there.

Those data brokers aren't as tied into

[rsilvergun]

people's lives. Facebook is so big it's practically a public utility at this point. The US has something like 214 million users. That's more than half the population. I doubt you can find a functioning adult who doesn't have an account.

Any (New) Bad?

[BrianMarshall]

So... where is the (new) bad for FB?

From what (little) I know about this, it sorta seems like CA was the bad actor and maybe FB should sue them for breach of the TOS.

Facebook should never have gone public

[sproketboy]

They never needed to. They made plenty of money as a private company. They only went public so insiders could make a killing on the early stock trades. Now they're stuck with the gov who's going to make them a public utility. I'm fine with that since I hate Zuk and Facebook.

PST file sizes?

[unixisc]

have retained data sets that were supposed to be destroyed

Can you imagine the SIZE of all of those PST files? (Oh, so it's just me -- nobody's an Exchange/Outlook admin anymore??)

Size of PST files? It's been a while since I last used Outlook, but don't PST files have a limit of 2GB, beyond which they can't grow?