A judge Tuesday dismissed motions by the District Attorney General of the District of Columbia to name Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, as a defendant in a privacy lawsuit.
Judge Maurice A. Ross of the District of Columbia Superior Court said in a hearing that Washington Attorney General Karl Racine had waited too long to try to modify the lawsuit to name Mr. Zuckerberg as the defendant. a move that attempted to keep him personally liable.
“The problem I have with this is you’re waiting three years,” Judge Ross said, referring to Mr Zuckerberg’s addition to the case, which was filed in court in December 2018. “What value does it add to name it? There is no more relief for the consumers of the neighbourhood.”
Judge Ross also opposed a demand from Mr. Racine to impeach Mr. Zuckerberg from the trial.
Mr Racine’s lawsuit accused Facebook, which renamed itself Meta last year, of misleading consumers about privacy on the platform by allowing Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy, to obtain sensitive data from more than 87 million users. , including more than half of the district’s residents. †
Mr. Racine attempted to add Mr. Zuckerberg as a defendant in October and said he wanted to send a message to all company leaders that they could be responsible for harming consumers. Mr. Zuckerberg, by being named in the lawsuit, could have been exposed to financial and other sanctions.
Facebook is at the center of multiple legal battles with regulators. It is the target of antitrust and consumer protection lawsuits by the Federal Trade Commission and several prosecutors.
The office of Meta and Mr. Racine declined to comment.
