The owner of Facebook Meta Platforms has agreed to pay $725 million to settle a class-action lawsuit accusing the social media giant of allowing third parties, including Cambridge Analytica, access to users’ personal information.

The proposed settlement, revealed late Thursday in court documents, is linked to a lawsuit filed after it was revealed in 2018 that Facebook allowed British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to access the data of 87 million users.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs said the proposed settlement is the largest ever reached in a U.S. personal data class action, and the largest amount Meta has ever paid to settle a class action.

The Meta has not admitted any wrongdoing as part of the settlement, which must be approved by a federal judge in San Francisco. The company said in a statement that the settlement “is in the best interest of the community and our shareholders.”

Cambridge Analytica, now defunct, worked on Donald Trump’s successful 2016 presidential campaign and accessed the personal information of millions of Facebook accounts to collect and target voter data effectively.

Cambridge Analytica obtained information without user consent from a researcher whom Facebook allowed to develop an application on its network that collected data from millions of Facebook users.

In 2019, Facebook agreed to pay $5 billion to settle a Federal Trade Commission investigation into its privacy practices and $100 million to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allegations that it misled investors about the misuse of user accounts. data.

The state’s attorney’s investigation is ongoing, and the company is pursuing a lawsuit against the Washington District Attorney.

Yesterday’s agreement settled allegations by Facebook users that the company violated various federal and state laws by allowing app developers and business partners to collect their personal data widely without their consent.

Source: RES-IPE