Facebook to Pay $725M Over Cambridge Analytica Class Claims

Facbook will pay $725 million to settle a U.S. class action lawsuit over its 2018 Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal, parent company Meta said Thursday in a filing before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in 18-md-02843-VC.

The settlement class is estimated at 250 million-280 million Facebook users, the filing said. It’s a “fair” and “reasonable” deal that was reached after years of “hard-fought” litigation and is an “outstanding result” for the class, the company said. Meta noted Facebook “ended or is subject to FTC monitoring of the data sharing practices challenged” by the class. The company noted Facebook no longer makes “non-public friend data available to apps without the explicit authorization from the user whose data is being shared.” Facebook has “substantially” enhanced its monitoring of third-party data use,” Meta said: It also “substantially limited” application programming interfaces that “emit information indicating users requested or obtained specific videos” on the platform.

Meta cited comments from lead settlement mediator, retired federal judge Jay Gandhi, who called the settlement “a reasoned and sound resolution of this exceptionally uncertain and notable litigation.” The settlement class includes all Facebook users in the U.S. from May 2007 to December 2022. Attorneys leading the case can seek fees and costs in an amount not exceeding 25% of the settlement fund, the court said. Facebook users in the U.K. can proceed in their home courts in a separate case, the court said.

The lawsuit was filed based on Facebook’s “violations of promises it made to users about the privacy of their data, including how third parties could use data,” according to the filing. Meta highlighted “substantial improvements” to Facebook’s ability to “restrict and monitor third parties’ access to and use of Facebook user data to protect that data from potential misuse.” This includes periodic assessments of app developers’ and partners’ access to user data, risk-based assessments to determine where increased monitoring is needed and the “depreciation” of quiz apps, which provide “minimal utility” to users.

The $725 million figure is the largest amount recovered by users in a U.S. data privacy class action agreement, said Meta. The company compared it to the $650 million settlement in the Illinois biometric information privacy case, a $380 million deal over Financial Credit Reporting Act claims in the Equifax data breach, and $350 million for T-Mobile’s data breach litigation earlier this year. The Facebook settlement is subject to a judge’s approval, with review expected in March. The company didn’t admit wrongdoing in the agreement. Facebook paid $5 billion in 2019 to settle the FTC’s investigation of the scandal.