Meta agrees to close the Cambridge Analytica case. More than four years after the Cambridge Analytica scandal erupted, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram e WhatsApp agreed to pay 725 million dollars to definitely fix one class action which accused the social media giant of having made concessions to third parties, including its own Cambridge Analytica, to access users' personal information without their consent, as many as 87 million subscribers of the social media network.
- lawyers of plaintiffs called the proposed settlement the largest ever in a class-action lawsuit privacy some data in the United States and the highest Meta has ever paid to settle a class action lawsuit.
Never trouble for Facebook not end , promising. The news of the plea agreement comes a few days after the accusations made by the European Antitrust against the company. Brussels disputes the company of distort the advertising market of online ads through its Marketplace platform.
Scandal Meta (Facebook): what happened?
Cambridge Analytica, now bankrupt, was a British consultancy firm, which filed for bankruptcy in May 2018 due to the scandal in which it was engulfed for contributing to the manipulation of voter thinking with a election propaganda secret in favor of Trump the 2016 US presidential elections and the pro-Brexit British referendum. But how? The company accessed the personal data of 87 million people through an app (thisisyourdigitallife) and used the information collected to send personalized messages. The scandal was exposed by the New York Times and the Guardian in 2018, thanks largely to whistleblower Christopher Wylie.
Meta: the agreement to close the Cambridge Analytica case
“This historian agreement will provide significant relief to the class in this complex new case of privacyplaintiffs' attorneys Derek Loeser and Lesley Weaver said in a joint statement.
Meta did not admit any illicit in the context ofagreement. “Over the past three years we have renewed our approach to privacy and we have implemented a comprehensive privacy program,” Meta said, adding that the settlement is “in the best interest of our community and shareholders.” But it's still early to sing victory. This deal will need to be approved by a federal judge and he may deem it "insufficient" and proceed to try to get more.
Meta and the other penalties paid and the file opened
Meta has already paid a fine of for this case 5 billion dollars to resolve an investigation of the Federal Trade Commission about its privacy practices and others 100 million to resolve the allegations of the Securities and Exchange Commission to mislead investors about the misuse of user data. Despite bargains and fines, the case Cambridge Analytical it's not closed yet, with Meta facing yet another lawsuit filed in the Washington DC court.
