The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday cleared Facebook’s proposed $19 billion dollar acquisition of mobile messaging startup WhatsApp. The deal is still subject to International regulatory approval, however, before being considered fully closed. On Thursday morning, the FTC sent letters to Facebook and WhatsApp reminding the two companies of their “obligations to protect the privacy of their users. As the FTC mentioned in its announcement, Facebook settled federal charges in 2011 that the social network had “deceived consumers by failing to keep its privacy promises,” and must now seek user approval on any changes to its privacy settings. “We’re pleased the FTC has completed it’s review and cleared our acquisition of Whatsapp,” a Facebook spokesperson told Re/code.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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