Meta has agreed to pay $90 million to end a lawsuit over the company’s use of cookies to track Facebook users’ internet activity, even after they log out of the platform.
Meta once again settles a privacy complaint, but this one dates back several years. In fact, this is a ten-year-old class action lawsuit concerning the company’s use of “cookies” in 2010 and 2011 that tracked people online even after they log out of the Facebook platform. Their personal information was collected, aggregated and then resold to advertisers for targeted advertising.
A preliminary settlement proposal was filed this week in the U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., and must be approved by a judge. Facebook has pledged to pay 90 million dollars (79 million euros). The agreement also requires that Facebook delete data it has collected inappropriately.
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Facebook was spying on its users
The February 2012 lawsuit alleged that Facebook obtained consent from its users to track their information while they used the social media network. However, the giant promised to stop tracking this data once the user logs out of the platform. You suspect it, Facebook allegedly continued to track its users’ browsing data, even after they logged out.
Worse still, Facebook allegedly then compiled users’ browsing histories into profiles that it allegedly sold to advertisers. This isn’t the first time Facebook has faced such accusations.. Earlier this year, the CNIL imposed a record fine on Meta for its management of cookies, and Facebook could soon be forced to pay a fine of 2.8 million euros for spying on Facebook users in the UK. United.
Even today, Facebook is not exemplary in respect of privacy. Security researchers had advised disabling the Facebook app on iPhones, as it would be able to use accelerometer data to track users.
Facebook to pay plaintiffs $90 million
The 10-year-old case was first dismissed in June 2017, when a federal judge said the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate the privacy consequences of the tracking or that they suffered economic harm. It was revived in April 2020 by a federal appeals courtwhich said users could attempt to prove that the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company made unfair profit and violated their privacy.
Facebook had tried to get the Supreme Court to take up the case, but it refused, allowing the federal appeals court’s decision to remain in effect. To close the case once and for all, Facebook has therefore finally agreed to comply with justice and settle an amount of 90 million dollars..
The $90 million will be split among plaintiffs who submit verified claims indicating they were affected by Facebook’s tracking. In addition, plaintiffs’ attorneys plan to seek legal costs amounting today to $26.1 million, or 29% of the total amount than to agree to pay Facebook.
” 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 are happy to move on from this issue. said Drew Pusateri, spokesperson for Meta. The fine should not destabilize the company’s finances much. As a reminder, Meta had set aside 1 billion euros to be able to pay all its fines, an amount multiplied by three compared to the previous provision.
Last year, Facebook also agreed to pay $650 million to settle another lawsuit Privacy Statement, in which it was alleged that the company’s tagging feature violated an Illinois law prohibiting the collection of biometric data without prior notice and written consent.
Source: The Verge
