Facebook Inc. Fined In Germany

The social media network has managed to do well in a lot of countries but it should understand that it can't function by its own ways everywhere.

Facebook Inc. might be the social media giant with incredible user growth, financials as well as popularity but on the legal side the networking website has been facing trouble in a number of countries. After have legal issues in India, Facebook has issued a fine of $109,330 (€100,000) as it failed to comply with the terms and condition of user content.

On 9 December, 2016 the social media network was criticized by the regional court of Berlin in Germany regarding the terms that involve German users. As per the clause the users were “grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any intellectual property (IP) content that you post on or in connection with Facebook.”

However, the regional court completely disagreed to this clause and asked the social networking site to change it as the clause gives rights to the company to use the content of the German users or whatever they post on the network. Despite the fact that the court has initially requested the organization to remove that clause from the terms, it failed to comply with it and hence was fined because of that negligibility. Additionally, it has decided to remove that specific clause from its terms and condition and has also agreed to pay the fine.

Berlin’s regional court stated during the latest sentence that a similar problem had been faced by the social website back in 2012 as well where it was requested to alter a clause which seemed to be violating the rights of the consumer. However, after an appeal to the court this clause was removed in 2014 which included the “royalty-free” and “in connection with” terms from it from the users residing in Germany.

This is not the first complaint that has been received against in the region; there have been a number of complaints against the social media network in the European Union countries. These countries are specifically concerned about the user’s data as well as their privacy. They value national security as well as the privacy of their citizens due to which they are keeping a close eye on the US internet along with such tech giants.

Furthermore, the most recent legal problem that the tech giant faced was in India with its Free Basics offer. As per the offer, Mark Zuckerberg was going to provide free internet all across India to people who did not have access to it; evidently it was not only for the benefit of the people on the country but also the company itself. Increased accessibility of internet would mean an increase in Facebook users, so the company was not just doing the people of India a favor. However, this offer was negated by the Indian Regulatory as they stated that it was of no good for the people and gave an unfair edge to the company.

The company did not stop at that, there were a number of promotional campaigns but despite of all the efforts that social media company failed to provide the service; mainly because it violated the net neutrality laws of the country. 

Facebook Stock Witnesses Decline In Stock

Facebook, Inc. Tries To Take Over YouTube's Market; Witnesses Decline In Stock

The social network giant Facebook, Inc. since the last twelve months is trying to take over YouTube’s market, which makes up for most of the users who view videos on the internet. Currently, YouTube has dominance over the video views on the internet but thesocial media giant has been desperately making efforts to overcome that.

In a search conducted by Sandvine, a network company, the yearly internet usage of the video streaming website has grown from 14% to 17.9% while the social media network’s yearly usage has gone down from 3% to 2.5%. On Monday, the stock of the social media website was being traded at $105.61 with a loss of -0.54%.

The trading session held on Monday closed at a loss of 0.54%; Facebook stock throughout the session kept fluctuating between $104.66 and $106.83, with the former being the lowest at which the stock was seen at and the latter being the highest. Towards the end of the session, the shares of the company that were being traded were 15,474,890 shares. The outstanding shares of Facebook are 2,827,994, 100 shares with the current market capitalization of $298,664.

In the last twelve months, the highest level to which the share price was witnessed at was $110.65 and a low level of $72. A number of analysts, during this time, have commented on Facebook stocks one of which was a research and financial services firm, Argus Research. The research company has maintained its rating of the shares of the company at Buy. However Argus Research has raised the target price of the social media site’s shares to $130 from an initial target price of $115 per share.

As for gaining the video internet market, in comparison to Hulu, Netflix and Amazon, Facebook is still pretty far behind. On the other hand, the company has received a rating of Buy by stock experts at Rosenblatt Securities, research and financial services firm, as per the reports of MarketBeat. The target price that the research firm is estimated for the stock of the social media company is $125 which indicates an incline of 18.36% from the shares present price per share.

The earnings per share for the current quarter of fiscal year 2015 were reported by the company on November 4, 2015 of $0.57 which in comparison to the estimated EPS by analysts shows a difference of $0.05. As per the estimations of analysts the EPS of the company was supposed to be $0.52. Analysts had predicted that the company would report earnings of $4.36 million but the company for the quarter reported earnings of $4.50 million.

In the same quarter in the previous fiscal year (2014), the social company had recorded earnings per share of $0.43 with an increase in its earnings of 40.4% on an annual basis.