Meta reaches out-of-court settlement for violating user privacy
Washington, Aug 27 (EFE).- Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has reached an out-of-court settlement in a lawsuit seeking damages for sharing user data with third parties, including Cambridge Analytica.
According to a court filing, Meta and the attorneys handling the class action lawsuit requested 60 days to complete the settlement specifics.
The financial parameters were not mentioned in the document filed on Friday, which stated that lawyers for claimants and Facebook were finalizing a written settlement.
The complainants have cited the privacy breach by the now-defunct London-based Cambridge Analytica.
The alleged exploitation of user data by the firm surfaced in 2018.
It was revealed that Cambridge Analytica used an application to collect millions of data from Facebook users without their consent for political purposes.
The firm allegedly used the data to create psychological profiles of voters and sold it to the Donald Trump campaign during his 2016 presidential race.
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) imposed a record-breaking $5 billion penalty against Facebook.
The $5 billion fine was the largest imposed on any company for violating consumers’ privacy and almost 20 times more than the previous-largest privacy or data security penalty worldwide.
It was one of the largest penalties ever assessed by the US government for any violation.
The order also required Facebook to restructure its approach to privacy from the corporate board level down and establish solid mechanisms to ensure that its executives were accountable for their privacy decisions. EFE
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