Meta has reportedly agreed to pay $725 million fine for “allowing Cambridge Analytica and other third parties to access private user information and misleading users about its privacy practices.”
“The proposed settlement would end the legal battle that began four years ago, shortly after the company disclosed that the private information of as many as 87 million Facebook users was obtained by Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics firm that worked with the Trump campaign,” Clare Duffy observes.
Between 250 and 280 million people are expected to benefit from the settlement. The protracted lawsuit, The Kenya Times understands, “involved obtaining millions of pages of documents from Facebook and other related parties and hundreds of hours of depositions, including dozens of current and former Facebook employees.”
Meta spokesperson Dina Luce said in a statement: “We pursued a settlement as it’s in the best interest of our community and shareholders. Over the last three years we revamped our approach to privacy and implemented a comprehensive privacy program. We look forward to continuing to build services people love and trust with privacy at the forefront.”
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According to Duffy, the infamous Cambridge Analytica leak “began with a psychology professor who harvested data on millions of Facebook users through an app offering a personality test, then gave it to a service promising to use vague and sophisticated techniques to influence voters during a high-stakes election where the winning presidential candidate won narrowly in several key states.”
A report released by the UK Information Commissioner in 2020 “cast significant doubt on Cambridge Analytica’s capabilities, suggesting many of them had been exaggerated. But the improper sharing of Facebook data triggered a cascade of events that has culminated in investigations and lawsuits.”
In 2019, Facebook agreed “to a $5 billion privacy settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission over the privacy breach, and to a $100 million settlement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission over claims that it misled investors about the risks of misuse of user data.”