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Facebook Fined $5B? Big Deal ... Last Quarter's Revenue Was 3X More

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Facebook was fined $5 billion by the FTC today.

Good thing for Zuckerberg and company that its latest quarter racked up $16.6 billion in revenue.

The fine was a new record for the FTC, almost 2000% more than the next biggest: Equifax. It's for Facebook's violation of user privacy in the Cambridge Analytica case and other breaches of privacy agreements with the FTC. But Facebook's quarterly revenue was also a record for its second quarter at $16.9 billion — and was within a whisker of an all-quarter record.

That's up almost 30% year-over-year.

Operating margin, however, was sharply down to 27% from the healthier heights of 44% a year ago ... thanks to a $2 billion charge.

The social media company added a $2 billion charge to its quarterly expenses in anticipation of an FTC fine. The next quarter will likely not be impacted, however, as Facebook had already set aside additional funds in anticipation of the fine.

Facebook makes 98% of its revenue from advertising — "Senator, we sell ads" — and that's where the FTC found the main problem.

"Facebook monetizes user information through targeted advertising," the FTC said, adding that "the Department of Justice will file a complaint on behalf of the Commission alleging that Facebook repeatedly used deceptive disclosures and settings to undermine users’ privacy preferences in violation of its 2012 FTC order."

In other news, Facebook daily average users have now hit 1.59 billion, up 8% from last year, and it has 2.41 billion monthly average users, also up 8% from the year-ago quarter.

But the family of Facebook properties has even wider appeal.

"We estimate that more than 2.1 billion people now use Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or Messenger (our 'Family' of services) every day on average, and more than 2.7 billion people use at least one of our Family of services each month," the company said in a press release.

Facebook stock is up 3.6% today, valuing the company at $584 billion.

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