Social media giant Facebook, now known as Meta Platforms, faces more than a $3.2 billion class action in Britain over allegations of abusing its market dominance by exploiting the personal data of 44 million users.
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The lawsuit will be heard by London's Competition Appeal Tribunal alleging Facebook made billions of pounds by imposing unfair terms and conditions that demanded the consumers to surrender valuable personal data to access the network.
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The report highlighted, “It is claimed this allowed the firm to generate billions in revenues from their data, while users received no monetary returns, which the claim labels an 'unfair deal'.”
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Liza Lovdahl Gormsen, a senior adviser to Britain's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) watchdog and a competition law academic, said she was bringing the case on behalf of people in Britain, alleging Facebook collected data within its platform and through mechanisms like the Facebook Pixel, allowing it to build an "all-seeing picture" of Internet usage and generate valuable, deep data profiles of users.
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However, Facebook said people used its services because it delivered value for them and they have meaningful control of what and with which they share information on Meta's platforms.
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“They choose our services because we deliver value for them and they have meaningful control of what information they share on Meta's platforms and with whom. We have invested heavily to create tools that allow them to do so,” a Meta spokesperson said.
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A Federal Judge ruled that US competition watchdog FTC can proceed with a breakup lawsuit against Facebook's owner.
