Welcome to the Tech Mem Right Home for Monday, July 15th, 2019. I'm Brian McCullough.

Today, the FTC is readying a record find for Facebook, but is it just a glorified parking ticket?

Qualcomm refreshes the Snap Dragon lineup, governments want to make money off of selling your data too.

Microsoft Office is quietly winning in mobile and the

Air Force warns do not storm Area 51. Here's what you missed today in the world of

tech.

Right around published time on Friday, a bunch of publications were reporting that sources were reporting that in a three to two vote, FTC commissioners had approved a record five billion

dollar settlement with Facebook over the company's privacy violations. The

vote was along party lines with the Republican majority voting for the agreement and the Democrats voting against.

Quoting the Wall Street Journal,

the settlement would easily exceed the previous record penalty for violating an FTC order, a 22 and a half

million dollar fine levied against Google in 2012.

The Commission has limited powers to impose fines for first-time privacy violations, but has broad

latitude to sanction repeat offenders.

Facebook shares gained 1.8% on Friday, even though the reported settlement amount was $2 billion more than the company

had reserved for the settlement.

Facebook's profit for the first quarter before accounting for the penalty was slightly more than $5 billion.

After Facebook set aside the funds, some Democrats criticized the amount as too little,

and the party line decision this past week could expose Republicans to further criticism.

The FTC has sometimes been attacked as being toothless on privacy, end quote.

Indeed, in other reporting I read, it seemed that the Democrats wanted more stringent

oversight going forward in addition to the fine and for CEO Mark Zuckerberg to be held more accountable for past missteps.

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