Meta, Facebook’s parent company, will pay $725 million to settle a class action lawsuit filed in 2018. The lawsuit came in the wake of Facebook’s revelation that it improperly shared data from 87 million users with Cambridge Analytica, a British political consultancy. associated with former President Donald Trump’s election campaign.
Cambridge Analytica accessed Facebook user data through an app developed by a third party. While only about 270,000 Facebook account holders used the “This is Your Digital Life” app, the app’s permissions allowed access to data about those users’ friends. The end result was a data set of 87 million users that the developer then passed on to Cambridge Analytica, in violation of Facebook’s terms of service. The vast majority of those in the dataset had not given the consulting firm permission to access their data.
The unauthorized data sharing came to light in 2018, when reporters from The New York Times and The Observer informed Facebook that Cambridge Analytica still had copies of the data, even though the British company had promised the social network in 2015 that the data would be be deleted.
Cambridge Analytica filed for bankruptcy in May 2018 after determining it was “no longer viable to continue the business”.
The lawsuit against Meta continued and other cases of problematic data sharing practices by Facebook were added to the complaint. Indeed, the lawsuit accused Facebook of “allowing numerous third parties to access their Facebook content and information without their consent, [and alleged] that Facebook has not adequately controlled access to and use of that information by third parties.”
Meta is not admitting wrongdoing or illegal activity by settling the case. Instead, the company says the $725 million deal, which has yet to be approved by a judge, is “in the best interest of our community and shareholders,” a Meta spokesperson told Reuters.
Up to 280 million Facebook users are covered by the settlement, meaning $725 million will be spread very thinly after plaintiffs’ attorneys take their 25 percent cut.
