Meta’s Facebook agrees to settle privacy lawsuit

A logo for Meta Platforms Inc. is seen on the stand, at the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups, at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France June 17, 2022. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

Aug 26 (Reuters) – Meta Platforms Inc’s Facebook has agreed in principle to settle a lawsuit in San Francisco federal court seeking damages for allowing third parties including Cambridge Analytica to access private user data, a court filing showed.

The financial terms were not disclosed in the filing on Friday that asked the judge to put the class action on hold for 60 days until lawyers for both the plaintiffs and Facebook finalize a written settlement.

The four-year-old lawsuit alleged that Facebook violated consumer privacy laws by sharing users’ personal data with third parties such as the now-defunct British political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.

Facebook has said its privacy practices are consistent with the disclosures and “do not support any legal claims”.

Facebook and its attorneys from Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher did not immediately respond to a request for more details regarding the settlement.

Of the two law firms representing the plaintiffs, Keller Rohrback did not comment while Bleichmar Fonti & Auld declined to comment.

Reporting by Eva Mathews and Praveen Paramasivam in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni

Our standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.