Facebook Agrees to Pay $90 Million to Settle Decade-Old Privacy Violation Case

Privacy Violation Case News

Meta Platforms has agreed to pay $90 million to settle a lawsuit over the company’s use of cookies to allegedly track Facebook users’ internet activity even after they had logged off from the platform.

In addition, the social media company will be required to delete all of the data it illegally collected from those users. The development was first reported by Variety.

The decade-old case was filed in 2012, and concerned Facebook’s use the “Like” button, which is a proprietary Facebook tool, to monitor users while they visit third-party sites – regardless of whether or not they used it – violating federal wiretapping laws. It then allegedly compiles that browsing history into profiles to sell the data to advertisers.

Based on the terms of the proposed settlement, users who browsed non-Facebook websites that included the “Like” button between April 22, 2010, and September 26, 2011, will be covered.

“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’re glad to move past this issue,” a spokesperson for Meta was quoted as saying to Variety.

This development is one year after Meta was required to pay $650 millions to resolve a class action lawsuit in which Facebook was accused of violating the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. Its use of facial recognition for tagging users without their consent.

The settlement comes as Meta has been involved in another privacy suit from Texas. This earlier this Week sued Meta “capturing and using biometric data millions of Texans, without properly obtaining informed consent to do it.” “

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