Facebook-Cambridge Analytica row raises questions about regulation, privacy

Much of the hullabaloo raises questions from the Indian perspective

Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook shared data with a Cambridge-based Russian researcher, Aleksandr Kogan, in 2013. He in turn sold the data on approximately 50 million Facebook users to Cambridge Analytica (CA), a political consulting firm that works on elections in several countries across the world.

That, in short, is the crux of the Facebook-CA fracas which lopped nearly $50 billion from the social media giant’s market capitalisation last week. That is a body blow for a firm that has hardly any physical assets (about $14 billion). Its entire business is built on the perception of its value. Facebook’s bread, butter and