The parent company of Instagram and Facebook has filed a lawsuit against the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in an effort to prevent the reopening of a 2020 privacy settlement. The settlement, if reopened, would prohibit the company, Meta Platforms Inc., from profiting off the data it collects on users under the age of 18. In the lawsuit filed in a federal court in Washington, D.C., Meta claims that the FTC is exercising structurally unconstitutional authority by reopening the privacy agreement. Meta respectfully requests the court to declare certain aspects of the Commission’s structure as violating the U.S. Constitution, rendering the FTC proceeding against Meta unlawful. The roots of this dispute trace back to a consent agreement Meta made with the FTC in 2020, which resulted in Meta paying a record $5 billion fine for privacy violations.

In May of this year, the FTC accused Meta of failing to fully comply with the 2020 settlement and proposed significant changes that include prohibiting Meta from making money from data collected on minors. This ban would extend to data collected through Meta’s virtual reality products. The FTC has not commented on the lawsuit thus far.

Meta’s decision to file the complaint coincides with a Supreme Court case that may impact other regulatory agencies, specifically regarding how the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) fights fraud. The court’s conservative majority appeared open to a challenge that would allow individuals accused of fraud by the SEC to have their cases decided by a jury in the federal court instead of by the SEC’s administrative law judges, echoing elements of Meta’s lawsuit.

Senator Edward Markey, a critic of Meta and other prominent tech companies, called Meta’s lawsuit a weak attempt to avoid accountability. However, Markey believes that Meta’s adoption of extreme, right-wing legal theories to challenge the FTC undermines consumer protection agency accountability.