Facebook parent Meta has agreed to pay $725 million to settle a long-running lawsuit, accusing the social network of allowing third parties to access users’ private data.
The lawsuit was initiated in 2018, when Facebook users accused the social network of violating privacy rules by sharing their data with third parties, including the British firm Cambridge Analytica, which had been linked to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Complainants alleged that Facebook “granted numerous third parties access to their Facebook content and information without their consent, and that Facebook failed to adequately monitor the third parties’ access to, and use of, that information”.
The lawsuit involved obtaining millions of pages of documents from Facebook and other related parties and hundreds of hours of depositions, including dozens of current and former Facebook employees.
Meta spokesperson Dina Luce said, “We pursued a settlement as it’s in the best interest of our community and shareholders. Over the last three years we revamped our approach to privacy and implemented a comprehensive privacy program. We look forward to continuing to build services people love and trust with privacy at the forefront.”
Facebook in 2019 agreed to a record $5 billion settlement with the FTC. Facebook also agreed to pay $100 million to settle a case around the same time with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over allegations the company made misleading disclosures about the risk of misuse of user data. 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.
