Facebook parent Meta agrees to pay $725 million to settle Cambridge Analytica suit

Facebook parent Meta has agreed to pay $725 million to settle a class action lawsuit that claimed the social media giant gave third parties access to user data without their consent. It is the “largest recovery ever achieved in a data privacy class action and the most Facebook has ever paid to resolve a private class action,” said Keller Rohrback L.L.P, the law firm representing the plaintiffs. The class action lawsuit was prompted in 2018 after Facebook disclosed that the information of 87 million users was improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica, a consultancy firm linked to former President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign. The case was broadened to focus on Facebook’s overall data-sharing practices. Cambridge Analytica, which shut down after the allegations in 2018, was controversial because the data it harvested from Facebook was used to inform political campaigns. After the revelations, the Federal Trade Commission opened a probe into Facebook over concerns that the social media firm had violated the terms of a previous agreement with the agency, which required it to give users clear notifications when their data was being shared with third parties.

[12/23/2022]