Ahead of its fourth-quarter earnings, Facebook faces costly regulatory pitfalls

Good morning, Data Sheet readers. Tech writer Danielle Abril here filling in for Adam.

With Facebook’s fourth-quarter earnings coming up on Wednesday, I’ve got my eyes on how it’s handling concerns from regulators across the world. When the dust finally settles, the company could end up paying a hefty price—just perhaps not in fines.

Lawmakers in America have been cracking down on the company for failing to ensure the privacy of its users, leaving data vulnerable to hackers, and allegedly stifling competition by buying up social media competitors like WhatsApp and Instagram. Yesterday, Reuters reported that the feds are beefing up their staff to aid with their antitrust probes into Facebook and its Big Tech cohorts Amazon, Apple, and Google. And last year, the Federal Trade Commission slapped the social media giant with a $5 billion fine for mishandling user data.

The U.S. is not alone in its scrutiny of the company.

Facebook is reportedly facing a fine of “billions of euros” from Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, the leader of the European Union’s investigations, for similar issues, according to the Wall Street Journal. And Facebook almost lost an antitrust lawsuit in Germany that would’ve changed how it collects user data, the fuel for its advertising machine. The crisis was averted after an appellate court ruled in Facebook’s favor.

All of that said, Facebook’s business, which generated $55.8 billion in revenue last year, has been fairly unscathed by regulatory scrutiny. And most analysts don’t expect that to change come Wednesday. They predict that Facebook will report $20.9 billion in revenue for the quarter and $70.5 billion for the year.

RBC Capital Markets remains “quite impressed with Facebook’s scale and overall usage relative to its peers,” according to an analyst’s latest note. Raymond James and Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co. also remain positive on Facebook’s stock ahead of earnings.

But Colin Sebastian, a Baird senior research analyst, raises an interesting point. Though the potential of regulatory fines may do little to hurt Facebook’s overall business, they could portend a costlier toll in the long run.

“My … concern is more generally whether the distraction of investigations and regulations stunts innovation or puts further pressure on profitability,” he noted. “As time goes on, and more governments decide to take their ‘pound of flesh,’ distraction becomes a bigger concern.”

It’s hard to take down a company once it becomes a behemoth. But if the company is too busy heeding international regulators, it could unintentionally lose its lead.

Danielle Abril

Twitter: @DanielleDigest

Email: danielle.abril@fortune.com

This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman.

NEWSWORTHY

Way better than a laptop. Monday marked the 10th anniversary of the introduction of Apple's iPad. Former Microsoft exec Steven Sinofsky shared an interesting tweet storm about how he initially misjudged the device. And longtime Apple watcher John Gruber dug into why the iPad still hasn't lived up to its potential. "Great though it is in so many ways, overall it has fallen so far short of the grand potential it showed on day one," he wrote.

Bird on the wire. The British government tried to split the baby in the controversy over allowing gear from Chinese telecom maker Huawei into the U.K.'s new 5G wireless networks. While being excluded from "sensitive parts" of the networks, Huawei will be allowed to supply much of the rest of the system, despite U.S. concerns.

Fumbled. The official Twitter accounts for more than a dozen National Football League teams were hacked on Monday, though rather benignly. "We are here to Show people that everything is hackable," the hackers, calling themselves OurMine, wrote on the teams' feeds. The messages were quickly deleted.

You had one job. Antivirus software developer Avast has been selling customers' web browsing history to clients including Home Depot, Pepsi, and Microsoft, an investigation by Motherboard found. The data appears to have been collected by a web browser plugin which ostensibly protects users from malicious sites. In another tale of data hijinks online, counterfeit restaurants appear to be cropping up on delivery services like GrubHub and Uber Eats. The fake food suppliers have taken the names of popular, real restaurants that don't offer take out.

Putting your money to work. Fortune's quarterly investment guide includes some stock picks from top fund managers, and there's plenty of tech on their plates. Diane Jaffee, who manages TCW’s Relative Value Large Cap Fund, touts Cisco Systems. “In this kind of environment where the world is aflame, you do want the power of a very large, super well-run company,” she says. Mark Baribeau, head of global equity at Jennison Associates, likes the globally expanding Shopify.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Corporate tax receipts have plummeted since 2017 tax cuts slashed the rate imposed on corporations. But way before that, tech companies like Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft were innovating new ways to minimize their tax bills. In an article co-published by Fortune and ProPublica, Paul Kiel tells the convoluted and fascinating tale of the Internal Revenue Service's efforts to challenge a Microsoft transaction in Puerto Rico.

Here’s how it would work. Microsoft’s Puerto Rican subsidiary would produce all the CDs for the American market. Because it was the sole producer, it would buy the exclusive rights to Microsoft’s technology. Those licenses would entitle the Puerto Rican company to a share of Microsoft’s American profits...the factory subsidiary would send the parent company about $31 billion over 10 years — and receive almost $70 billion in profits in return over the same period. Instead of being taxed in the U.S., where the rate was 35%, the $39 billion difference between those figures would be taxed in Puerto Rico at a rate near 0%. It was a long-term plan that could continue indefinitely. It didn’t matter that the transaction was fundamentally absurd. Microsoft would never actually sell its most valuable asset to another company, let alone to a little tropical factory.

ON THE MOVE

Some corporate boards are diversifying. Intel is adding Alyssa Henry, general manager and head of the seller business unit at Square, as former Intel CFO Andy Bryant steps down...and Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su is joining the board of Cisco Systems, increasing the company's board size to 11 people...former Apple, Tesla, and (most recently) Google software engineer Chris Lattner is joining custom chip startup SiFive as senior vice president and lead platform engineer...former BMC Software CEO Peter Leav, who navigated the company to a sale to private equity last year, will be the new boss at cybersecurity firm McAfee starting next month...Airbnb's new global head of real estate will be Jesse Stein. He arrives from KHP Capital Partners, where he was senior vice president.

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Apple’s new golden child— services—is in the earnings spotlight. Here’s why By Don Reisinger

Why 2020 is shaping up to be a strong year for IPOs By Lucinda Shen

Why Melinda Gates is investing $50 million to make the next Silicon Valley—starting in Chicago By Maria Aspan

Lender SoFi is back from the brink with a new strategy to target the ‘everyman’ By Jeff John Roberts

BEFORE YOU GO

I got a little overexcited at the post office the other day when I discovered that illustrations from Ezra Jack Keats' children's book The Snowy Day had been made into Forever stamps. Absolutely brilliant. The book, which came out in 1962, won the prestigious Ralph Caldecott Medal for the best children's picture book of the year. They announced the 2019 award on Monday: The winner was The Undefeated, by Kwame Alexander and illustrated by Kadir Nelson, a poetic story of black history in America.

Aaron Pressman

On Twitter: @ampressman

Email: aaron.pressman@fortune.com