Facebook parent Meta will pay $725M to settle user data case
San Francisco (AP): Facebook's corporate parent has agreed to pay 725 million to settle a lawsuit alleging the world's largest social media platform allowed millions of its users' personal information to be fed to Cambridge Analytica, a firm that supported Donald Trump's victorious presidential campaign in 2016.
Terms of the settlement reached by Meta Platforms, the holding company for Facebook and Instagram, were disclosed in court documents filed late Thursday. It will still need to be approved by a judge in a San Francisco federal court hearing set for March.
The case sprang from 2018 revelations that Cambridge Analytica, a firm with ties to Trump political strategist Steve Bannon, had paid a Facebook app developer for access to the personal information of about 87 million users of the platform. That data was then used to target U.S. voters during the 2016 campaign that culminated in Trump's election as the 45th president.
Uproar over the revelations led to a contrite Zuckerberg being grilled by U.S. lawmakers during a high-profile congressional hearing and spurred calls for people to delete their Facebook accounts. Even though Facebook's growth has stalled as more people connect and entertain themselves on rival services such as TikTok, the social network still boasts about 2 billion users worldwide, including nearly 200 million in the U.S. and Canada.
The lawsuit, which had been seeking to be certified as a class action representing Facebook users, had asserted the privacy breach proved Facebook is a "data broker and surveillance firm," as well as a social network.
The two sides reached a temporary settlement agreement in August, just a few weeks before a Sept. 20 deadline for Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his long-time chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, to submit to depositions.
The company based in Menlo Park, California, said in statement Friday it pursued a settlement because it was in the best interest of its community and shareholders.
"Over the last three years we revamped our approach to privacy and implemented a comprehensive privacy program," said spokesperson Dina El-Kassaby Luce. "We look forward to continuing to build services people love and trust with privacy at the forefront."
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No sweet in pre-wedding dinner menu turns things bitter between both sides in Somwarpet
police file case
Somwarpet: The Somwarpet Police have filed a case against a youth who fought with the bride's family over the lack of a sweet dish during the pre-wedding dinner in town recently.
The officers have said that they filed the case on Tuesday against five people, including the groom Harshith, his mother, brother, sister-in-law and maternal uncle, based on a complaint filed by the bride's family. They have added that the five people are accused of dowry harassment, cheating and also insulting the bride's family. Investigation of the matter is on, the Somwarpet cops said.
The wedding of the girl from Somwarpet taluk and the boy from Tumakuru district was to be held at a hall in town on Sunday, May 5.
Harshith's family, which arrived from Tumakuru on Saturday evening, allegedly raised ruckus over the fact as the hosts had failed to include a sweet dish in the menu for Saturday dinner. A verbal duel over the matter between the parties reportedly intensified into a physical fight at the wedding hall, after which both of them approached the police on Sunday morning.
Flustered by the incident, the bride reportedly told the Somwarpet Police that she no longer wished to marry Harshith.
