Facebook users accuse the social network of violating privacy rules by sharing their data with third parties, including Cambridge Analytica.
Article written by
Published
Update
Reading time : 1 min.
Facebook has reached a preliminary agreement in the lawsuit claiming damages from the social network for letting third parties, including Cambridge Analytica, have access to users’ private data. According to a court document filed Friday, August 26 with a court in San Francisco, Facebook submits the project of a “agreement in principle” and requests a stay of proceedings for 60 days “in order to finalize the agreement in writing and present it to the court”.
The social network does not specify the amount or the terms of this agreement in this collective lawsuit. Questioned by AFP, Meta (new name given to the group holding Facebook in 2021), the parent company of Facebook, replied “have no comment at this time”. The deal comes as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and chief executive Sheryl Sandberg, who announced her resignation in June after 14 years with the company, were due to testify in court in September in connection with the dispute. scandal.
In a procedure initiated in 2018, Facebook users accused the social network of having violated privacy protection rules by sharing their data with third parties, including the firm Cambridge Analytica, linked to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016.
>> United States: we explain how the Trump campaign used the data of millions of Facebook users
Cambridge Analytica, which has since closed, had collected and used, without their consent, the personal data of 87 million Facebook users, to which the platform had given it access. This information would have been used to develop software used to guide the vote of American voters in favor of Donald Trump. In July 2019, federal authorities fined Facebook $5 billion for allegedly “deceived” its users and imposed on it independent control of its management of personal data.