Facebook Settles FTC Charges And Agrees To Independent Audits Of Its Privacy Program

Earlier today, Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") and Facebook announced a settlement of the government's charges that the company had deceived users regarding their ability to keep their information private. We have reposted below a blog post outlining the major elements of the settlement agreement. The post was authored by our colleague Colin Zick, co-founder of Foley Hoag's Security & Privacy practice group, and originally posted on the firm's Security, Privacy, and the Law blog.

One of the most interesting aspects of the settlement from a corporate social responsibility perspective is that Facebook has agreed to submit to independent audits to ensure that its privacy controls and policies are consistent with the FTC settlement. These audits are to occur every two years -- over the course of the next 20 years. A similar requirement was imposed in the FTC's settlement of its case against Google, which involved charges stemming from the company's launch of the