Meta Made 43M Misleading Statements, New Mexico Jury Finds, Including on Its Cambridge Analytica Response

A New Mexico newspaper calls it "another massive legal victory" against Facebook, reporting that the jury found Facebook "had committed tens of millions of violations of the state's Unfair Practices Act in connection with its lies to consumers about how their personal information was handled by the company and third-party users." The state has asked the company be ordered to pay the maximum civil penalty of $5,000 per violation meaning a judge could potentially order the company to pay billions in penalties to the state. The jury also found the company had been dishonest about its investigation of and response to the 2013 Cambridge Analytica data breach scandal, in which approximately 300,000 Facebook users took an online personality quiz, only to have the app that hosted the quiz harvest data from tens of millions of their "friends." The data was then transferred to the British consulting firm, which used it to create targeted political ads during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. More details from Reuters: The verdict followed a two-week trial over a lawsuit filed by New Mexico's attorney general in 2021, three years after news reports revealed that the firm, Cambridge Analytica, had harvested personal data from as many as 87 million Facebook users through a third-party app...

At a press conference after the verdict was announced, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said the case revealed "in stark detail the way in which this company plays fast and loose with the rules." Jurors found 26 of 29 statements identified by the state were misleading, including comments about user data... Judge Francis Mathew will now determine civil penalties after jurors found more than 43 million violations, based on the number of people affected by the company's misleading statements... [New Mexico Attorney General] Torrez said his office is evaluating how much to seek but will push for the maximum penalty based on the jury's findings. The state will also ask [Judge] Mathew to direct Meta to make changes, which could include corrections to its past misstatements as well as an audit of the way it manages user data, Torrez said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.