Meta Loses Against FTC In Minor Privacy Case

JAKARTA After fighting the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for several months, it ended up losing in court over a federal judge's decision from the District Court.

Judge Timothy Kelly ruled that US regulators have the right to reduce the amount of revenue Meta generates from users under 18. Kelly also refused a motion from Meta so that district agencies could take over the case.

This case began with allegations by the FTC in May. The institute stated that Meta had misled parents regarding the amount of control they had in knowing who was in contact with their children at Messenger Kids.

For this action, the FTC plans to amend funds for case settlements in 2019. At that time, Facebook was asked to pay a settlement fee of 5 billion US dollars or around Rp. 77 trillion.

In the latest rules issued by the FTC, the agency will tighten policies in collecting money from users under the age of 18, including Meta's virtual reality business.

According to a Reuters report,Meta said that the FTC allegations regarding minors and their privacy concerns were baseless. They are trying to fight the FTC which is considered to have violated the law for rewriting their agreement unilaterally.

Meanwhile, in different hearings, Meta is being sued for cases of handling children under the age of 13 on its platform. Meta is also considered to have deliberately targeted children for the benefit of the company.

This lawsuit was filed by the attorney general in 42 countries. The company is claimed to have violated the Child-Child Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) which discusses specifics about internet access for teens to data collection restrictions.

All of these prosecutors believe that Meta is aware of the number of users under 13 years of millions. Instead of getting rid of the children's accounts according to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's promise in 2021, citing from TechCrunch, the company let it go and collect their personal information.