Record Facebook fine won’t end scrutiny of the company

Facebook survived its latest brush with US privacy regulators, at the cost of a record $5 billion fine and other restrictions imposed by the Federal Trade Commission. But it’s far from home free.

While the company looks set to prosper in the wake of the FTC case, it faces a series of other investigations into its privacy practices in Europe and across the US Concerns over the limits of the just-settled probe could fuel efforts to craft tougher privacy laws at the state and federal level.

The social network is also gearing up to fight investigations into its allegedly anticompetitive behavior, such as Facebook’s habit of buying would-be rivals like Instagram and blatantly duplicating features introduced by competing services.