The U.S. Federal Trade Commission found Meta’s Facebook guilty of misleading guardians about security for children and suggested tightening a current ongoing agreement on privacy and security to also involves a ban on making money and taking profit from minors’ data.

Highlights

• Instagram was bought by Facebook for $1 billion in 2012
• Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014
• FTC restricts Meta from buying VR content make

The US Federal Trade Commission accused Meta’s Facebook of misguiding parents on the protection of children and proposed a strict system to an existing agreement on privacy to involve a ban on making a profit from minors’ data.

The regulators said the company had breached a 2019 agreement on privacy after misleading parents that how much control they had over whom their children are contacting in the Messanger Kids app and also wary about how much access to privacy data developers have.

There have been proposed changes in the policy of collecting data on minors barring Facebook from making a profit from data collected on users below the age of 18. Also in its virtual reality business, the company should face broad limitations in using facial recognition technology.

After the regulators proposed the ban and the news circulated on the internet the shares of Facebook fell as much as 2%.

Meta stated with a comment as the FTC action was “a political stunt” and when the FTC failed to stand against “Chinese companies like TikTok.”

“We will vigorously fight this action and expect to prevail,” the company said.

The US regulators move their first step against the Meta Company and gave 30 days of timing to respond to it when it moves to change the 2019 agreement. The company has the option to move to any court against any commission decision.

“This is a very substantial statement from FTC about whether or not Meta has fulfilled its duties to protect children,” says Debra Williamson of Insider Intelligence, also added, “The revenue implications are not likely very large.”

He also informed that the out of Facebook users about 5.2 percent users are under 18, along with 12.6 percent of Instagram users.”