Facebook's richer than ever, despite data privacy scandals

Facebook's Cambridge Analytica nightmare — in which a UK data firm allegedly leaked ill-gotten info about millions of Facebook users — may have rocked the company, but you wouldn't know it by looking at the company's bottom line. In fact, if you were solely looking at the company's latest earnings, you might actually think the scandal has helped Facebook.

The company posted earnings of $11.97 billion for the first quarter of 2018, beating Wall Street's expectations of $11.41 billion and proving that advertisers have not been deterred by the social network's spate of headline-making issues.

"Despite facing important challenges, our community and business are off to a strong start in 2018," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a prepared statement during the company's earnings call. Read more...