Facebook parent company Meta has agreed to pay $725 million to settle a class action lawsuit alleging that it improperly shared user information with Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics firm used by the Trump campaign.
The proposed payout is a response to 2018 allegations that the third-party business,
which filed for bankruptcy in 2018, may have access to up to 87 million consumers’ data improperly.
Both the largest recovery in a data privacy class action and the highest sum ever paid by Facebook to settle a private class action, according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys, who submitted a court filing on Thursday.
While maintaining that its users approved of the methods and did not experience any harm, Meta refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing.
Between 250 million and 280 million people could get money as part of the class action settlement, according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys. The size of each prize will depend on how many people submit valid claims.
More than 500 million Facebook users’ personal information was exposed earlier this year on a website for hackers. According to sources, the stolen information includes email addresses, phone numbers, Facebook IDs, complete names, residences, birth dates, and profiles for more than 533 million members across 106 nations, including the US, UK, India, and Canada.
