Supreme Court clears path for lawsuit against Meta
In a decision, the US Supreme Court has allowed a class-action lawsuit against Meta to proceed, reviving scrutiny over the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal.
The US Supreme Court has decided to allow a class-action lawsuit against Meta, Facebook’s parent company, to move forward. The case stems from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where the political consulting firm accessed personal data from 87M Facebook users and used it for voter targeting in the 2016 US presidential election. Meta had sought to block the lawsuit, but the court dismissed its appeal.
Investors claim Meta failed to fully disclose the risks of data misuse, leading to two major drops in its stock price in 2018 when the extent of the privacy breach became public. Meta has already paid a $5.1B fine and a $725M settlement with users over related allegations.
The lawsuit is one of several legal challenges facing big tech firms. A separate case against Nvidia is under review, as investors allege the company misled them about its dependency on cryptocurrency mining.