The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which is looking into the allegations of privacy breach by Facebook, has accused the social networking giant of engaging in “unfair and deceptive” practices and has subjected the company to privacy audits for the next twenty years.

A new settlement announced by the watchdog on Tuesday asks Facebook to respect the privacy of its users and enforces privacy audits for the next two decades on the company. The settlement is linked mainly to the changes made by Facebook in the way it uses user details saved on the site in December 2009.

The FTC observed that the company made user information, which was saved on profile pages and were deemed to be private, open to public on the internet. It also said that Facebook allowed advertisers to gather some personally identifiable information when a user clicked on an advertisement on the social network. Facebook has affirmed that it does not share any user information with advertisers.

The order also accused Facebook is sharing user data with app developers. The FTC also noted that Facebook allowed access to photos and videos even after a user deletes Facebook count.

FTC did not impose any financial penalty on the company but said that if it violates the terms of the settlement, it would be liable to pay a penalty of $16,000 a day for each count.

“Facebook has always been committed to being transparent about the information you have stored with us — and we have led the Internet in building tools to give people the ability to see and control what they share,” responded Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook.