Meta has agreed to pay $725 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought by users of Facebook. They accuse the company of having shared their personal data with a third party actor in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys say the proposed settlement is the largest ever in a U.S. data privacy class action lawsuit. Meta has never paid so much to resolve a class action.
No wrongdoing according to Meta
Users have filed several complaints against the social network, accusing it of violating several federal and state laws by letting app developers and business partners harvest their personal data without their consent, in a way widespread. Lawyers for the users alleged that Facebook, now Meta, misled them into believing they could retain control of their private data when, in fact, thousands of outsiders had access to it.
As a reminder, Cambridge Analytica used data from 87 million Facebook users to develop the psychological profile of voters during the 2016 presidential election. This information was used by Donald Trump’s campaign to specifically target voters. platform users.
Despite settling $725 million, Meta did not admit wrongdoing. The company states that this agreement is made “ in the best interest of our community and our shareholders “.
The firm paid billions to settle the case
The American giant is the subject of other lawsuits in connection with the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the most important in its history. It also paid $5 billion to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the US competition authority, to settle the case with the US government. She also landed a $100 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for withholding information from her investors.
A document dating from 2019 and made public this week proved that Mark Zuckerberg had known about the case as early as 2017. Facing the American Congress, he assured that he had not known it until 2018, when the media investigated on the subject.
Source : Reuters
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