According to a court filing, Meta Platfrom Inc’s (NASDAQ: META) Facebook has agreed on a settlement of a pending lawsuit in the San Francisco court seeking penalties or allowing third parties such as Cambridge Analytica to access private user data.
Financial details of the settlement with Cambridge Analytica not disclosed
Interestingly the brief didn’t disclose the financial terms of the settlement. According to the filing, the company urged the judge to halt a pending class action for two months whole Facebook’ and the plaintiff’s attorneys finalize a written agreement.
In a four-year-old complaint, it was claimed that Facebook had shared user personal information with organizations like the since-defunct British political agency Cambridge Analytica in violation of user privacy regulations.
According to Facebook, its privacy policies don’t really allow any lawsuits and are in line with its declarations. The company or its attorneys, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, didn’t immediately answer an inquiry for additional information about the settlement.
Facebook gave access to Cambridge Analytica in 2018
Facebook acknowledged that Cambridge Analytica might have had access to personal data on approximately 87 million individuals in 2018 when the discoveries caused the internet giant’s stock price to soar (this figure was later corrected to around 50 million+).
Former US President Donald Trump’s campaign team had hired Cambridge Analytica to construct demographics and psychographics of voters using Facebook data that had been fraudulently obtained. According to a whistleblower, it was also charged with using strategies to discourage Black voters.
After CEO Mark Zuckerberg and ex-COO Sherly Sandberg were expected to give a testimony in September after their deposition in the California Cambridge Analytica lawsuit. The two appear likely to dodge being questioned in person regarding their involvement in the information debacle, at the very least in this litigation — if such an “in-principle” agreement holds up.
When Zuckerberg was summoned to testify in Congress regarding the 2018 issue, numerous evasive statements begged for forensics follow-ups. But it’s clear that Meta would rather spend money to protect its supreme commander from such criticism.
