Boston Facebook owner Meta has agreed to pay $725 million to settle a class action lawsuit. The settlement, revealed in a court filing late Thursday, settles a lengthy legal battle.
This was triggered by revelations in 2018 when it became known that Facebook had allowed the British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to access data from up to 87 million users. Meta did not admit any wrongdoing, but said the settlement was “in the best interests of our community and our shareholders.”
Plaintiffs’ attorneys called the proposed settlement the largest ever reached in a US privacy class-action lawsuit and the most Meta has ever paid to settle a class-action lawsuit.
Cambridge Analytica was a British data analytics firm founded in 2013 that went under in 2018 in the wake of the covert manipulation of the US presidential election scandal. The company, which is close to conservative politicians, had offered its services in numerous countries.
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With the help of an app, Cambridge Analytica, which had nothing to do with the university that gave it its name, evaluated millions of user profiles. This allowed Donald Trump’s presidential campaign to run targeted ads designed to encourage or dissuade voters based on their political leanings. According to experts, the team also relied on misleading statements.
The accusation was that Facebook made this approach possible by opening up its interface to third-party providers in the hope of higher income. After the scandal became known, Facebook restricted the amount of information that external app developers can see.
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