New Mexico judge orders Meta to pay $25 billion over privacy claims tied to Cambridge Analytica
CNBC has the judge's reasoning, the math behind the penalty and both sides' statements.
A New Mexico district court judge ordered Meta to pay $25 billion in civil penalties, CNBC reports, in a case stemming from the Cambridge Analytica scandal. In September a Santa Fe jury found the company liable for misleading state residents about how it collects and protects user data, finding more than 43 million violations of the state's Unfair Practices Act, each carrying a penalty of up to $5,000.
According to the filing, the state was awarded $219.5 billion, reduced to $25 billion. Judge Francis Mathew wrote that the number and duration of willful violations, the involvement of senior Facebook leadership and the "intentional and systematic nature" of the misstatements supported the maximum per-violation penalty. Interest accrues at 15% a year until the fine is paid.
Attorney General Raúl Torrez said the order shows such violations "carry real consequences." Meta chief legal officer C.J. Mahoney said the company is confident it will prevail on appeal and that the ruling "makes it all but impossible to do business in the state of New Mexico."
Across the spectrum 1
Democrat
Raúl Torrez, New Mexico Attorney General (Democrat): Quoted by CNBC: "For too long, powerful technology companies have operated as though their size and influence put them beyond the reach of the law," adding that "this penalty order demonstrates that those violations carry real consequences."
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Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal
After exploring Meta ordered to pay $25B in New Mexico Cambridge Analytica case, the scandal at the root of the case is laid out in Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
The 2010s scandal in which personal data from millions of Facebook users was collected by British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica for political advertising without informed consent.
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