Tech fines in United States

The FTC imposed a $5B penalty and sweeping new privacy restrictions after finding that Facebook deceived users about their ability to control personal data, in violation of a 2012 consent order. Third-party apps had harvested data on up to 87 million users in the Cambridge Analytica episode. It was the largest privacy penalty in history at the time.

The FTC settled claims that Amazon tricked consumers into enrolling in Prime through deceptive sign-up flows and made cancellation deliberately difficult, an internal process nicknamed Iliad. The settlement comprised a $1B civil penalty and $1.5B in refunds to about 35 million customers.

Texas settled claims that Meta captured facial-recognition data of millions of Texans through photo tag suggestions without consent, in violation of Texas biometric law. It was the largest single-state privacy settlement at the time.

Texas settled claims that Google unlawfully captured biometric data such as face and voice identifiers and made misleading claims about Incognito mode and location tracking. It is one of the largest single-state privacy settlements on record.

All 50 states settled antitrust claims over Play Store billing restrictions and deals that limited rival app stores. Of the total, $630M went to a consumer fund and $70M to the states.

A class-action settlement resolved claims that Facebook's tag-suggestion faceprinting violated Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act. Roughly 1.6 million Illinois users received payouts.

Apple agreed to a US class-action settlement of up to $500M, roughly $25 per affected iPhone, over the same undisclosed performance throttling.

Forty US states settled claims that Google misled users into believing location tracking was off while it kept collecting location data through other settings such as Web & App Activity. It was the largest multistate privacy settlement at the time.

The FTC and the New York Attorney General alleged that YouTube collected personal data from viewers of child-directed channels through cookies, without parental consent, and used it for targeted advertising. It was a record COPPA penalty at the time.

The FTC and DOJ penalised Twitter, now X, for using phone numbers and email addresses collected for account security, such as two-factor authentication, to target advertising.

Thirty-four US states settled claims over the hidden iPhone throttling, separate from the consumer class action.

The FTC settled claims that Amazon kept children's Alexa voice recordings indefinitely, against COPPA and parents' deletion requests.

The FTC penalised Google for circumventing Safari's default cookie-blocking to track users for advertising, despite telling those users they were protected. It was a record FTC civil penalty at the time.

The FTC settled claims that Ring employees and contractors improperly accessed customers' home camera videos, and that lax security allowed outside access.