Meta has agreed to pay $90 million to settle a 10-year data privacy case alleging Facebook employed “cookies” to track subscribers’ internet use even after logging off the site.
Filed in 2012, the lawsuit claims Facebook illegally used proprietary plug-ins to track internet browsing on third-party sites between 2010 and 2011. While the social network did obtain consent to follow folks while logged in, it did not keep its promise to stop tracking once people sign off.
“Reaching a settlement in this case, which is more than a decade old, is in the best interest of our community and our shareholders and we’re glad to move past this issue,” a company spokesperson told PCMag in an emailed statement.
The agreement, according to law firm DiCello Levitt Gutzler, is among the 10 largest data privacy settlements in US history, and has “already established important precedent for future data privacy litigation.” In addition to the monetary charge, Meta will sequester and delete all data at issue. The agreement is subject to court approval.
Facebook managed to quash this case three times in trial court before it landed in the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In 2020, the Ninth Circuit held that the unlawful copying and monetization of personal data creates “economic harm.”
It also ruled Facebook was not a party to the communication it allegedly intercepted for purposes of the Wiretap Act, meaning its data collection required actual user consent. The company appealed the rulings to the US Supreme Court, which last year declined to review the case, allowing the Ninth Circuit’s decision to stand.
