Meta has decided to settle the class action lawsuit over the Facebook leak to Cambridge Analytica with a checkbook. The technology company will pay 725 million dollars to settle the accusations made against it for the scandal related to the leaking of personal information of users to the British company.
The accusation dates back to 2018, when Facebook allowed the data consultancy Cambridge Analytica to access the data of nearly 90 million users. According to Reuters, an agreement on the class action was finally reached on Thursday night and as stipulated, the technology company must pay some 685 million euros.
This is the largest payment made by Meta to resolve a lawsuit of this type
Alexander Nix, CEO of Cambridge Analytica, arrives at the Cambridge Analytica offices in central London, Britain March 20, 2018.
Reuters
This is the largest payment made by Meta to resolve a lawsuit of this type. Derek Loeser and Lesley Weaver, lead lawyers for the plaintiffs, say it is the largest settlement ever reached in a US data privacy lawsuit. “This landmark settlement will provide significant relief in this novel and complex privacy case,” they state in a statement.
However, Meta has not acknowledged any of the irregularities of which it is accused. Rather, it is an agreement reached “in the best interest of our community and shareholders.” The technology ensures that “during the last three years, we renewed our approach to privacy and implemented a comprehensive privacy program.”
Also read La Vanguardia
The now-defunct political consultancy Cambridge Analytica worked on behalf of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and accessed personal information from millions of Facebook accounts without consent for the purpose of profiling voters. The platform allowed a researcher to implement an app that collected data from millions of people.
Facebook made users believe they were in full control of their personal data
Mark Zuckerberg, during his appearance before the Energy and Commerce Committee in Washington DC (United States), on April 11, 2018
EFE
The United States Government received the first demands and began to investigate the company’s privacy practices, even questioning Mark Zuckerberg in the United States Congress.
In 2019, Meta agreed to pay more than 5,000 million dollars to settle an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission for its privacy policies and 100 million dollars to resolve the accusation of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, according to which had misled investors about the misuse of user data.
Also read La Vanguardia
With the agreement on Thursday night, Meta settles the charge for the violation of federal and state laws after allowing application developers and business partners to access personal information in a general way. Lawyers in charge of the collective defense alleged that Facebook made users believe that they had full control of their personal data, when in fact they were being exposed to third parties.
