US election campaign: State of Washington sues Google and Facebook

Google and Facebook should not have adhered to the guidelines for political advertising in the state of Washington. The customer and the price must be mentioned there.

US election campaign: State of Washington sues Google and Facebook

Attorney General Bob Ferguson of United States federal State of Washington has sued Facebook group and Google parent company Alphabet for lack of transparency in release of political advertising. Accordingly, both companies do not comply with local laws on financing of electoral advertising.

In state in northwest of United States, media companies have to name ir buyers of political ads and also give information about how much y have paid for it. Ferguson emphasized that this election advertising law applies to everyone in state – "Wher it is a small local newspaper or a large company".

According to indictment, Google and Facebook have not adhered to regulations since 2013. According to figures, y received a total of 4.9 million US dollars from candidates for political offices and campaign teams over past ten years. 3.4 million dollars (almost three million euros) accounted for Facebook, 1.5 million dollars (1.3 million euros) on Google.

Both companies did not want to comment on lawsuit in detail. Google shared, you check letter and will work with Attorney general's office. The group is committed to transparency and information obligations in context of campaign advertising. Similarly, statement that Facebook published: "The Attorney general has raised important questions and we look forward to quickly solving m toger with his office."

For critics of Facebook, lawsuit from Washington is anor example of group's carelessness or even delinquency in this area. Thus, he had to admit to having passed data from up to 87 million users to a company for data analysis. Among or things, y were to be used illegally for election campaign of today's US president Donald Trump. Moreover, Facebook is accused of not having done enough against use of so-called bots that deliberately spread false messages and thus influence elections.

Date Of Update: 06 June 2018, 12:02