The storm on Facebook and Cambridge Analytica continues unabated. Three days after the explosion of the scandal, while the whole world is waiting to hear the version of Mark Zuckerberg - until now locked up in deathly silence - the United States was triggered the first class action against the two companies.
FACEBOOK: THE CLASS ACTION
The class-action lawsuit, which could pave the way for many other lawsuits around the world seeking damages for the failure to protect the privacy of approximately 50 million users, was brought before the district court of San Josè (California) in order to ask for an account of the data collected - according to the promoters - without any authorization. Data that would then be used to facilitate the ascension to the White House of Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, according to reports from the Wall Street Journal, also there Federal Trade Commission (Ftc), the US government agency for consumer protection and competition, has opened an investigation aimed at ascertaining whether Facebook has respected its commitments to ask for consent before collecting user data and sharing it with other companies. If not the Ftc could fine the social network $40.000 for each violation found. Therefore, if it were really proven that user data has been "passed" to Cambridge Analytica violating the privacy of 50 million people, the fine could reach a Guinness figure.
At the same time, in Great Britain, British Prime Minister Theresa May expressed her concern over suspicions of misuse of the data of millions of users, encouraging the Authority for the protection of personal data to investigate. But May has vehemently denied that her party has "existing contracts" with Cambridge Analytica as a consultant.
KOGAN'S WORDS
"They scapegoat me, both Facebook and Cambridge Analytica“, but the truth is that everyone knew everything and we all “thought we were acting perfectly appropriate”.
These are the words of Alexander Kogan, an American academic son of Soviet expatriates and professor of psychology at Cambridge. The man, che collected and processed Facebook data through his app and then passed it on to consultancy and political propaganda company, however, questions that that information may indeed have played a key role in Trump's victory.
THE ROLE OF BANNON
But Steve Bannon's shadow behind Cambridge Analytica is growing more cumbersome by the hour. According to some revelations that have emerged in the last few hours, Trump's former chief strategist would in fact have been the supervisor of the data collection program launched by the British company. In fact, we recall that Bannon was vice president of Cambridge Analytica from June 2014 to August 2016. According to Chris Wylie - the mole who started the scandal - Bannon would have started working on this project even three years before his assignment to the White House .
FACEBOOK BRINGS A BREATH ON THE NASDAQ
After two days of heavy declines which caused a 10% drop, Facebook bounces on the Nasdaq. After starting trading in the red, the stock reversed its trend and at 17.20 earn more than 2%. In the sessions of March 19 and 20, Facebook saw its market capitalization decrease by about 60 billion dollars
