Meta to settle Facebook Cambridge Analytica lawsuit for $725 million

Meta, Facebook’s parent company, on Friday agreed a $725 million settlement to resolve a class-action lawsuit in the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. In the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook gained access to the private data of 67 million Facebook users, including Indians, which was used to profile voters.

The lawsuit was filed in a California court on behalf of Facebook users impacted by Meta’s partnership with Cambridge Analytica. “After more than four years of intensive litigation, the plaintiffs have achieved an extraordinary outcome on behalf of the class. The proposed settlement of $725,000,000 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,” read the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote that the amount of the recovery is particularly striking given that Facebook argued that its users consented to the practices at issue, and that the class suffered no actual damages.

“Plaintiffs dispute these characterisations, but acknowledge that they faced tremendous risks in this novel and complex case,” they said.

Significantly, since this case started, Facebook has ceased allowing third parties to access data about users through their friends, “has meaningfully enhanced its ability to restrict and monitor how third parties acquire and use Facebook users’ information, and developed more robust tools to tell users what information Facebook collects and shares about them”.

Meanwhile, Meta on Thursday said it took down over 19.52 million pieces of content across 13 policies for Facebook and over 3.39 million pieces of content across 12 policies for Instagram in the month of November in India. Between November 1-30, Facebook received 889 reports through the Indian grievance mechanism, and the company said it provided tools for users to resolve their issues in 511 cases.

These include pre-established channels to report content for specific violations, self-remediation flows where they can download their data, avenues to address account hacked issues etc, said Meta in its monthly report in compliance with the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

 

–IANS

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