Remember Cambridge Analytica Scandal? Facebook Parent Meta To Pay $725M To Settle Privacy Lawsuit

The fallout from Facebook's Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal continues four years after it was first exposed in March 2018. Parent company Meta Platforms Inc META has agreed to pay $725 million to settle the class-action lawsuit accusing Facebook gave third parties access to user data without their consent.
It is the "largest recovery ever achieved in a data privacy class action, and the most Facebook has ever paid to resolve a private class action," Keller Rohrback, the law firm representing the plaintiffs, said in a court filing.
The case alleged that Cambridge Analytica may have collected the personal information of as many as 87 million Facebook users.
Only around 300,000 Facebook users downloaded the MyDigitalLife app. Still, the app was able to access the data of many of those 300,000 users' Facebook Friends, which funneled their data to Cambridge Analytica, where it was used for targeted political campaigning, including for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential election victory.
According to Keller Rohrback, Facebook has allegedly known about Cambridge Analytica's improper data collection since 2015 and failed to stop the activity or notify users until March 2018.
Cambridge Analytica, now defunct, is a consultancy firm linked to former President Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign.
In 2019, Facebook agreed to a record $5 billion settlement with the FTC, Reuters reported, as well as paid $100 million to settle a case around the same time with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over allegations that the company made misleading disclosures about the risk of misuse of user data.
Price Action: META shares are up 0.32% at $117.49 during the premarket session on the last check Friday.

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