Meta has agreed to pay 725 million dollars to settle a lawsuit over a Cambridge Analytica-related data breach. In the dispute, the British company was accused of allowing third parties, including the social media giant, access to Facebook users’ personal data.
Lawyers assert that the proposed sum is the highest in a US class action regarding data privacy. Meta claimed that over the past three years, it had revamped its privacy policy without admitting any wrongdoing. The company stated in a statement that settling was in the community’s and shareholders’ best interests. The company is looking forward to building services that people love and trust that place privacy first.
According to tech author James Ball, the fact that Meta had to agree to a substantial payout, though not a lot of money, it was not surprising. He went on to say that it is less than tenth of what it spent on its efforts to create the metaverse alone in 2021
The proposed settlement, which was made public in a court filing, needs to be approved by a San Francisco federal judge. Lead plaintiffs’ attorneys Derek Loeser and Lesley Weaver stated in a statement that the historic settlement will provide significant relief to the class in this novel and complex privacy case.
The complaint was filed on behalf of a large proposed class of Facebook users whose personal data was shared with third parties without their permission. According to the ruling document, the class size is in the range of 250 to 280 million dollars. This number represents all Facebook users in the United States during the class period, which started on May 24, 2007 and ended on December 22, 2022.
It is still not clear that the way that the offended parties would guarantee their portion of the settlement. According to Janis Wong, a privacy and ethics researcher at The Alan Turing Institute, if each person made a claim, it would only be two or three dollars. On March 2, 2023, a second hearing on the settlement is scheduled.
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