Mark Zuckerberg before Congress promises to be better with users

At least, American lawmakers present in such a situation appeared more prepared this time than those of a year ago who had very little information on Facebook business during hearing hearings about the serious violation he had made in distributing the unlicensed data of his 50 million users, writes The Economist.

This time, David Marcus gave very well - reasoned answers to sensitive questions asked during his hearing. One of the most delicate was the newborn social network project Books. Among the questions asked were: Does this new project pose a threat to user data?

How will Facebook manage to generate money from Books when it is run by an independent Swiss-based body? Any data transaction will require approval of users, while the money will come from advertisers, were the answers to the above questions.

But one of the questions anyone would like to ask Mr. Marcus was completely different: Why should a troubled social network in the past market market a global financial instrument? This is also the first question to come to mind, following the decision made by the Federal Trade Commission to impose this company with a fine of $5 billion on misuse of user data.

The fine is one of the highest that the US government has ever placed on a Technology Company (while the EU has been harsher in this regard). Facebook is trying to convince the government that, despite all the facts that accuse him, he can get another chance, trusting him again.

Recently, Mark Zuckerberg, chief of Facebook, has called for drafting and establishing more regulations on the Giants of Technology, including his company. During the hearing, Mr. Marcus noted that Books and Calibra (the digital portofol that will enable sending cryptomonedes to anyone having smartphones) will not be introduced until the American lawmakers' concerns and doubts are clarified.

This time, Facebook's representative appeared to be asking for more permission to market such a product than pardon for the mistakes this network made in the past. The maturity shown by Facebook representatives has a very high and most positive impact on investors. The progress of this social network is increasingly slowing, but the income from Instagram is growing rapidly, as is the money generated by WhatsApp.

Analysts are awaiting the results of the second quarter of Facebook, released in late July, to prove that the income of this social network has increased by 25% from last year to $1.3 billion. Unlike some other technology firms, net Facebook revenues are expected to rise by 6% to $5.4 billion, more than enough to cover the fine that can be imposed. But that doesn't mean Facebook is overcoming all the difficulties. Financial authorities are concerned by the books, because it can result in fraud and can be used for money laundering, as did some other cryptoids.

Central bankers fear that, if approved widely, it could turn into a threat to financial stability. On July 16th, Ursula von der Leyeen, the newly elected president of the European Commission, said she wanted the technology giants to pay more taxes. The next day of this date, the bloc's European Competition Commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, announced the launch of an investigation into Amazon into the use of commercial data. In some countries data protection regulators want to force non-compliance companies to completely stop processing data. This action would be much more than simply setting a fine.