Meta Wants Settlement of Cambridge Analytica Suit

Meta Platforms has gone to an out-of-court settlement in federal court in San Francisco over claims in a lawsuit accusing Facebook of illegally handing over user data to research company Cambridge Analytica.

In the four-year-old lawsuit, Facebook users allege that Facebook violated consumer privacy laws by giving personal user data to Cambridge Analytica, a company linked to a US presidential candidate, which gained access to the personal data of 87 million people registered on the platform.

Bloomberg claims that the company made the concessions after its chief executive Mark Zuckerberg could be summoned for questioning, where he would have to answer questions from the plaintiffs' representatives for six hours.

In addition to Zuckerberg, the court wanted to testify Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, who recently announced her intention to leave the company. Her testimony was expected in court on 20 September.

The judge asked for the class action to be suspended for 60 days until the lawyers for the plaintiffs and Facebook finalise the written settlement. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.