Meta ordered to pay $25 billion fine for privacy breaches

Photo courtesy of Facebook

A New Mexico court ordered Meta to pay $25 million fine after a jury found Meta guilty of exposing user data, according to Reuters.

Meta Chief Legal Officer C.J. Mahoney said Meta will appeal the penalty.

He criticized the decision, saying the ruling imposes significant restrictions on businesses seeking to operate in the state.

The lawsuit was filed as part of the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the personal information of millions of Facebook users was made available to a political lobbying group without users’ consent.

Meta has repeatedly downplayed the impacts of that leak, with Meta executive Andrew Bosworth saying in 2020 that Cambridge Analytica was a “non-event” and that the lobbying group was essentially a collection of “snake oil salesmen” who had no real influence.

But even so, the case revealed significant gaps in Meta’s data security, which prompted the FTC to issue the company with a $5 billion fine for related breaches in 2019.

Meta Chief Legal Officer C.J. Mahoney said Meta will appeal the penalty.

He criticized the decision, saying the ruling imposes significant restrictions on businesses seeking to operate in the state.

The lawsuit was filed as part of the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the personal information of millions of Facebook users was made available to a political lobbying group without users’ consent.

Meta has repeatedly downplayed the impacts of that leak, with Meta executive Andrew Bosworth saying in 2020 that Cambridge Analytica was a “non-event” and that the lobbying group was essentially a collection of “snake oil salesmen” who had no real influence.

But even so, the case revealed significant gaps in Meta’s data security, which prompted the FTC to issue the company with a $5 billion fine for related breaches in 2019.