Meta ordered to pay $25B penalty in New Mexico Cambridge Analytica case
A New Mexico court ordered Meta to pay a $25 billion penalty following a data privacy case tied to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. A jury found the company liable for tens of millions of violations of the state's unfair practices act.
Why it matters
This represents one of the largest financial penalties ever levied against a major tech company for consumer data privacy violations.
Meta was ordered to pay $25 billion in penalties by a New Mexico court on Wednesday as part of a data privacy case that stemmed from the company's Cambridge Analytica scandal from nearly a decade ago.
The penalty, revealed in a court filing, comes after a jury in a Santa Fe courthouse found in September the social media giant liable for misleading state citizens about how it safeguards and collects user data and prevents harmful information from flourishing on its services.
Although the jury concluded that Meta had more than 43 million violations of the state's unfair practices act, with each transgression carrying a civil penalty as high as $5,000, a New Mexico judge was responsible for determining the ultimate fine. The Wednesday filing showed that the state was awarded $219.5 billion, but the penalty was ultimately reduced to $25 billion.
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New Mexico Judge Orders Meta to Pay Twenty Five Billion Dollars
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