Terms of the settlement have not been disclosed and the suit is on hold for 60 days
The latest lawsuit settled by Meta is not criminal but is a Class-Action civil suit and the financial terms of the settlement were not released. Additionally, no other details were made known although it would appear that the plaintiffs are those Facebook users whose personal data ended up at Cambridge Analytica. The latter firm went bankrupt just two months after the story broke about how the company acquired the personal data of so many Facebook users.
After the election, Cambridge Analytica tried to get business from other campaigns by showing slides like this one
While the amount that Meta agreed to fork over is not known, legal experts said that Meta would have been on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars had it lost the case in court. The filing filed with the court by both sides asks the judge presiding over the case in San Francisco federal court to put the suit on hold for 60 days as lawyers representing the plaintiffs and those representing Meta produce a written document discussing the terms of the settlement.
Cambridge Analytica patted itself on the back after the election as it sought to sign up more political campaigns
Cambridge Analytica, seeking business from other political campaigns following Trump’s 2016 shocker, created a slide show for potential customers showing how it came into a campaign in disarray and whipped it into shape.
The Class-Action suit has been going on for four years and as many as 87 million current and past Facebook users are in line to receive some money for having their personal info used without permission. How much might they each receive? That figure depends on the number of members in the class as some of the 87 million users might have decided to take legal action of their own. It also depends on the size of the settlement, and don’t forget that the lawyers will take anywhere from a 25% to 33% cut.
With the suit on hold for 60 days, it won’t be until Halloween at the end of October before we might have more information on how much Meta might be paying out to settle this suit. And for those who think that Meta and Facebook are being unfairly treated, consider that this all took place just five years after Facebook signed a consent decree with the FTC in 2011 promising never to use subscribers’ personal data without permission.
