Posted on 12/31/2022 8:11:32 AM PST by Enlightened1
Facebook parent company Meta has agreed to pay $725 million to settle a class-action lawsuit claiming it improperly shared users' information with Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics firm used by the Trump campaign.
The proposed settlement is a result of revelations in 2018 that information of up to 87 million people may have been improperly accessed by the third-party firm, which filed for bankruptcy in 2018. This is the largest recovery ever in a data privacy class action and the most Facebook has paid to settle a private class action, the plaintiffs' lawyers said in a court filing Thursday.
Meta did not admit wrongdoing and maintains that its users consented to the practices and suffered no actual damages. Meta spokesperson Dina El-Kassaby Luce said in a statement that the settlement was "in the best interest of its community and shareholders" and that the company has revamped its approach to privacy.
Plaintiffs' lawyers said about 250 million to 280 million people may be eligible for payments as part of the class action settlement. The amount of the individual payments will depend on the number of people who come forward with valid claims.
"The amount of the recovery is particularly striking given that Facebook argued that its users consented to the practices at issue, and that the class suffered
[[Meta has agreed to pay $725 million to settle a class-action lawsuit claiming it improperly shared users’ information with Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics firm used by the Trump campaign]]
Wondering about things like I-Roomba which apparently spies on people in the privacy of their own homes without their knowing it?
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/4119974/posts
All that smart tech spies on people, and records audio and video. The tech companies claim that the recordings are only for R&D and trouble shooting, but I no longer buy that.
When I retired from a defense contractor company in 2012, I was in a position to know that there was not enough computer storage in the world to record all that. Today, at the end of 2022, I know that now there are orders of magnitude more storage than ten years ago.
That’s about three bucks apiece. Take out the lawyers fees, and it is a little bit less probably. That’s if everybody comes forward, I suppose. Our freedom and privacy is worth two dollars and some change? Why anybody still goes to Facebook is a mystery to me. It must be mega addictive.
Yup- and all the tech has lists of keywords they monitor for too-
Meta was developed for spying, after Facebook restrictions.
Someone gave me an Echo Show for Christmas and was very excited to tell me about all the ways it could help me manage my digital smart home. Step one was to download an Amazon app to set up and manage the device on my phone. I asked them if they would like to watch the Mr. Robot episode where hackers took over a Smart Home and killed the owner so they could use her house for their operations base. Their answer, “You can tell it to turn off.” Seriously? All conversations or interactions with the Show are recorded on your app for “your convenience.” This is not an opt-in decision. You must delete conversations from your app. People need to stop exchanging personal information for a tad bit of effort.
If you own a business, you probably need to use social media.
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