- To settle a four year long legal battle, Facebook parent company Meta has agreed to pay $725M in a class action lawsuit, accusing Facebook of providing Cambridge Analytica and other parties to access private information of users.
- The data of 87M users was used to sway voters for Trump’s campaign in the 2016 election. Since then, Meta has implemented a comprehensive privacy program due to a global outcry. In 2019 Facebook also paid out a $5B privacy settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission, and a $100M settlement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for misleading its users.
- If the judge approves this settlement, it will cover 250 to 280M Facebook users and the compensation will depend on how many people submit valid claims.
Why it matters
This settlement 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.
