Cambridge Analytica breach results in lawsuits filed by angry Facebook users
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In the wake of the ongoing Cambridge Analytica debacle, Facebook has now been sued in federal court in San Francisco and San Jose. These new cases claim violations of federal securities laws, unfair competition, and negligence, among other allegations.
The pair of cases stem from recent revelations that Cambridge Analytica, a British data firm that contracted with the Donald Trump presidential campaign, retained private data from 50 million Facebook users despite claiming to have deleted it. New reporting on Cambridge Analytica has spurred massive public outcry from users and politicians, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg calling it a “breach of trust.”
These two cases, which were filed on March 20, could be just the first among what could be a coming wave of similar lawsuits.
One suit, filed by Lauren Price, of Maryland, says that she was served political ads during the 2016 presidential campaign and believes that she is part of the 50 million affected users. However, nowhere in her lawsuit does she specify why she thinks this—if she’s not actually on the list, then she would lack standing, and the case would likely be dismissed.
“Facebook lies within the penumbra of blame,” her complaint argues.
She seeks to represent “All persons who registered for Facebook accounts in the United States and whose Personal Information was obtained from Facebook by Cambridge Analytica without authorization or in excess of authorization.”
Her lawyers did not respond to Ars’ request for comment.
A second lawsuit is being brought by Fan Yuan, a man who describes himself as a Facebook stockholder who bought stock at an “inflated price” after February 3, 2017. The suit claims that the company made false statements when it did not reveal the breach. As such, when Facebook’s stock price dropped after the news broke late last week, he and many other investors lost money.
Facebook has refused to answer Ars’ questions or to provide many further details beyond public statements by its top executives and lawyers. The company will not say precisely what data was shared or when or how it will formally notify affected users.
“We are committed to vigorously enforcing our policies to protect people’s information,” Paul Grewal, Facebook’s deputy general counsel, said in a statement. “We will take whatever steps are required to see that this happens.”
In a post, Zuckerberg said that the company would impose strict changes going forward.
“We will restrict developers’ data access even further to prevent other kinds of abuse,” he wrote on Wednesday. “For example, we will remove developers’ access to your data if you haven’t used their app in three months. We will reduce the data you give an app when you sign in—to only your name, profile photo, and email address. We’ll require developers to not only get approval but also sign a contract in order to ask anyone for access to their posts or other private data. And we’ll have more changes to share in the next few days.”
Tech
via Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com
March 22, 2018 at 07:06PM