Abstract:
On Wednesday, a U.S. court in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay a $25 billion fine in a data privacy lawsuit stemming from the Cambridge Analytica scandal that the company was involved in more than a decade ago. The decision came after a Santa Fe court jury in September found Meta engaged in misleading conduct, according to a court filing. The jury found that Meta misled New Mexico people about how it protected user data, collected user data, and prevented the spread of harmful information on its service.
Although a jury found Meta violated the state's Unfair Practices Act more than 43 million times, which carries civil penalties of up to $5,000 per violation, the final fine was determined by a New Mexico judge.
Previously, Meta had resolved multiple data privacy lawsuits related to Cambridge Analytica across the United States through a settlement agreement totaling nearly $17 billion. The settlement involves a lawsuit filed by a group of state attorneys general in a separate federal case over child safety and mental health concerns. But because New Mexico did not participate in the settlement, the state's data privacy case based on the Cambridge Analytica scandal entered the trial stage in September.
In 2022, Meta agreed to pay $725 million to settle a class-action lawsuit also stemming from the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The scandal broke out in 2018 and severely impacted the company, which was still led by Mark Zuckerberg at the time and had not yet officially changed its name to Meta. The core accusation of the incident is that the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica improperly obtained the information of 87 million users, raising questions about Facebook's data handling methods.
Former New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas first filed the state’s Cambridge Analytica-related lawsuit in 2021, and current Attorney General Raul Torres oversaw the trial.
Torres also led a child safety-related lawsuit against Meta in New Mexico. In March, a jury ruled that Meta violated the state's "Unfair Practices Law" and had to pay $375 million. In the second phase of the case, a New Mexico judge subsequently ruled that Meta's actions constituted a public nuisance and required him to pay $567 million into a rectification fund.
Meta said it disagreed with the verdict and planned to appeal.
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