The four-year-old case accusing Facebook
The brief on Friday (Aug. 26) that asked the judge to halt the class action for 60 days while the plaintiffs' and Facebook's lawyers worked out a written settlement omitted the parameters of the deal.
The now-defunct British political consultant Cambridge Analytica was one of the defendants in the four-year-old case that claimed Facebook had shared user personal information with them in violation of consumer privacy laws.
Improperly disclosing users' data
In a long-running lawsuit, Meta Platforms Inc. alleged that Facebook had improperly shared user data with the research company Cambridge Analytica. The late Friday court filing comes after it was made public last month that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg would have to endure up to six hours of questioning from plaintiffs' attorneys.
The agreement's terms weren't made public. After it was discovered that a UK research firm linked to Donald Trump's presidential campaign in 2016 had access to the data of up to 87 million Facebook users, members of the social media network sued the company in 2018.
Have to give a testimony
In arduous legal disputes over pretrial information sharing, consumer attorneys have gradually increased their power to demand access to Facebook's internal documents in order to substantiate their claims that the business failed to protect their personal data. If Facebook's parent corporation had lost the case, it might have been liable for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Sheryl Sandberg, the Chief Operating Officer, would be required to give testimony, according to the court petition from last month. Through September 20, depositions were expected to take place. According to Facebook, its privacy policies "do not support any legal claims" and are in line with its disclosures.
An inquiry for additional information about the settlement was not immediately answered by Facebook or its attorneys from Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Keller Rohrback and Bleichmar Fonti & Auld, the two law firms representing the claimants, both declined to comment.
Presenting the case to the court for preliminary approval
Both sides' attorneys requested that the judge overseeing the case stop the litigation in order to "enable the process of finalizing a formal settlement agreement" and presenting it to the court for preliminary approval. Meta opted against commenting on the agreement.
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Facebook contended that its policies were revealed in user agreements. Additionally, it has stated that anyone disclosing personal information on a social network shouldn't expect to maintain their privacy. In Re Facebook Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, 18-MD-02843, United States District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).