Facebook ‘overpaid in data settlement to avoid naming Zuckerberg’

Mark ZuckerbergFacebook ‘overpaid in data settlement to avoid naming Zuckerberg’Lawsuit alleges settlement in Cambridge Analytica case driven by desire to protect founder Dan Milmo Global technology editorFri 24 Sep 2021 11.12 EDTLast modified on Fri 24 Sep 2021 11.39 EDTFacebook paid $4.9bn more than necessary to the US Federal Trade Commission in a settlement over the Cambridge Analytica scandal in order to protect Mark Zuckerberg, a lawsuit has claimed.The lawsuit alleges that the size of the $5bn settlement was driven by a desire to protect Facebook’s founder and chief executive from being named in the FTC complaint.Facebook was fined by the FTC in 2019 for “deceiving” users about its ability to keep personal information private, after a year-long investigation into the Cambridge Analytica data breach, where a UK analysis firm harvested millions of Facebook profiles of US voters.“Zuckerberg, [chief operating officer Sheryl] Sandberg, and other Facebook directors agreed to authorise a multibillion settlement with the FTC as an express quid pro quo to protect Zuckerberg from being named in the FTC’s complaint, made subject to personal liability, or even required to sit for a deposition,” said the shareholder lawsuit filed in Delaware last month but made public this week.The suit quotes a commissioner on the FTC, Rohit Chopra, who said the government “essentially traded getting more money, so that an individual did not have to submit to sworn testimony and I just think that’s fundamentally wrong”.The lawsuit claims that the settlement …

24/09/2021