Facebook parent Meta agrees to pay $275 million to settle 2018 privacy lawsuit

Facebook parent Meta has agreed to pay $725 million to settle a long-running privacy lawsuit that accused the social media giant of allowing third parties to access users' personal data.

However, Facebook has not yet admitted any wrongdoing as a part of the settlement which still needs approval by the US judge, AFP reported.

As per reports, it was claimed that Facebook reached a preliminary agreement in August but the amount was not announced. The amount was revealed on Thursday (Dec 22).

The plaintiff's lawyers said in the filing, "The proposed settlement of $725,000,000 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."

Meta's spokesperson said, "We pursued a settlement as it's in the best interest of our community and shareholders. Over the last three years, we revamped our approach to privacy and implemented a comprehensive privacy programme."

The lawsuit was filedin 2018 when Facebook was accused of violating privacy rules by sharing users' private data with third parties that included Cambridge Analytica firm from the UK that was also linked to former US President Trump's 2016 election campaign.

It was claimed that the information was used to turn US voters in favour of Trump.

In response to this, the firm was shut down then, only for collecting and using data of over 87 million users without their consent, the lawsuit alleged.

Since then, Facebook removed its access to users' data, restricted the amount of information available to developers and made it simple and easy for users to calibrate restrictions on personal data sharing.

(with inputs from agencies)

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