Tech giants Google and Facebook will respectively pay $217,000 and $238,000 to the United States over their failure to comply with federal rules for publishing political advertising, the Office of the Attorney General of the US state of Washington said in a statement.
On June 4, Attorney General of the US state of Washington Bob Ferguson filed two campaign finance lawsuits in King County Superior Court accusing the companies of violating the state's campaign finance laws, which say that information about those who buy such advertising needs to be maintained and made available to the public.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson today announced that Google will pay $217,000 and Facebook will pay $238,000 over allegations the companies failed to maintain legally required information for Washington state political advertising placed on their online platforms since 2013," the statement, issued on Tuesday, said.
According to the lawsuits, over the last decade, Facebook and Google received about $5.1 million and $1.5 million in revenue related to political advertising, respectively.
"Whether you are a small-town newspaper or a large corporation, Washington's political advertising disclosure laws apply to everyone," Ferguson said, as quoted by the statement.
In response to the lawsuit, Google stopped taking purchases of political advertisements in the state of Washington and local elections.
Both Google and Facebook expressed their readiness to pay the fines but refused to admit their guilt, the statement noted.
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