The U.S. Federal Trade Commission approved a roughly $5 billion settlement with Facebook Inc. this week over its investigation into the social media company's handling of user data, a source familiar with the situation said on Friday.
Investors cheered news of the deal and pushed Facebook shares up 1.8 percent, while several powerful Democratic lawmakers in Washington condemned the proposed penalty as inadequate.
The FTC has been investigating allegations Facebook inappropriately shared information belonging to 87 million users with the now-defunct British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. The probe has focused on whether the data-sharing violated a 2011 consent agreement between Facebook and the regulator.