For information regarding the settlement please visit the settlement website at https://facebookuserprivacysettlement.com/.
Case Overview
Keller Rohrback L.L.P. and Bleichmar Fonti & Auld LLP filed a First Amended Consolidated Complaint (“Amended Complaint”) against Facebook, Inc. which alleges that Facebook broke the law when it enabled third parties—such as the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica—to access Facebook users’ personal content and information without their authorization. Facebook, the Amended Complaint alleges, failed to properly protect users’ content and information from misuse or unauthorized access, which further violated users’ privacy and put them at risk of identity theft and additional misuse of their personal information.
The Amended Complaint was filed on behalf of a large proposed class of Facebook users and various proposed subclasses. The classes consist of users in the United States and the United Kingdom, since 2007, whose information on Facebook was released to third parties without the users’ authorization or consent. The Amended Complaint alleges that third parties may have been able to access users’ information beginning in 2007.
Case Status
On September 9, 2019, the Honorable Vince Chhabria issued an order allowing most of Plaintiffs’ claims to proceed.
In August 2022, the parties notified the Court of a settlement in principle. After months of additional negotiations, on December 22, 2022, Plaintiffs filed a motion seeking preliminary approval of the settlement. The Court granted Preliminary Approval of the Settlement on March 29, 2023. Plaintiffs filed a motion seeking final approval of the settlement on July 11, 2023. The final approval hearing was held on September 7, 2023. The Court’s ruling on the motion for final approval of the settlement is pending.
Please visit the settlement website for additional information regarding the settlement and to view the notice of settlement and a list of answers to frequently asked questions. Please note that the deadlines for filing a claim and opting out of or objecting to the settlement have passed.
Background
While the case now involves third parties other than Cambridge Analytica, it arose from the Cambridge Analytica scandal. In March 2018, the public learned that Cambridge Analytica had collected the personal information of as many as 87 million Facebook users through the use of MyDigitalLife (also known as ThisIsYourDigitalLife), a survey application (“app”) deployed on Facebook. This app was marketed as a tool used by psychologists and claimed to help users better understand their personalities.
Only around 300,000 Facebook users actually downloaded the MyDigitalLife app, but the app was able to access the data of many of those 300,000 users’ Facebook Friends. That is why Cambridge Analytica may have collected the personal information of as many as 87 million Facebook users.
Facebook has allegedly known about Cambridge Analytica’s improper data collection since 2015 and failed to take action to stop the activity or notify users until March 2018.
In addition to allegedly sharing users’ content and information with thousands of third-party apps, Facebook has allegedly shared its users’ personal information with device makers such as BlackBerry and Samsung, in violation of the promises it made to users about their privacy. Facebook has also allegedly sold access to users’ information to its business partners—a diverse group that included not only device makers but media and entertainment companies like Netflix, the car service Lyft, the Russian search engine Yandex, the rental service Airbnb, and many more.
Other Information
We are unable to respond to any questions as to whether any specific individual had their personal information compromised. Facebook users are able to manually access that information by logging into their Facebook account and clicking on the following link: https://www.facebook.com/help/1873665312923476.
Please be advised that we are not accepting the opportunity for representing individual persons or accepting individual cases, and we cannot provide any legal advice with respect to any potential claims as an individual.
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