Facebook And Cambridge Analytica Sued Over Data Breach Of Users
Facebook and Cambridge Analytica are in the midst of a backlash over a data breach. After the data leak from 50 million users and subsequent media reports, both companies have been sued in the United States because of the unauthorized use of Facebook information.
According to Reuters, a class-action complaint was filed late Tuesday by a Maryland resident, Lauren Price. In addition, the news release explained there is a strong possibility more lawsuits will follow seeking damages because of Facebook’s lack of protection over user data.
By the same token, the British firm Cambridge will be sued for using and exploiting the data to benefit President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. The news involving the world’s largest social network, Facebook, impacted the company’s stock performance.
“The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, several hours after Facebook was blamed in a shareholder lawsuit filed in nearby San Francisco for the drop in its stock price after the data harvesting was revealed. Nearly $50 billion of market value was wiped out in two days.”
The above report Facebook and Cambridge declined to comment upon being contacted for a response to recent developments. Also, the proposed lawsuit accused both companies of “negligence” and “violating” a California unfair competition law.
https://www.facebook.com/CBSNews/posts/10155631012980950
The plaintiff’s attorney, John Yanchunis, confirmed in a telephone interview with Reuters the client had witnessed a tremendous amount of political messaging during the campaign on her Facebook page. In other words, she had not seen this surge in political advertising.
After the events unfolded, the company’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg finally broke his silence on Wednesday. As reported by the New York Times, Zuckerberg acknowledged the privacy violation and Facebook would take the necessary measures to protect user information.
A Maryland woman who said she was targeted by political ads on Facebook in the 2016 election has filed a lawsuit against Facebook and Cambridge Analytica https://t.co/mpFJtKIh2w
— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) March 21, 2018
“We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you. I’ve been working to understand exactly what happened and how to make sure this doesn’t happen again. The good news is that the most important actions to prevent this from happening again today we have already taken years ago. But we also made mistakes, there’s more to do, and we need to step up and do it,” Zuckerberg explained in a written statement.
A Facebook user in Maryland has filed a lawsuit against the social network and Cambridge Analytica for improperly gathering her personal data without permission https://t.co/Q0FXxSMHbk pic.twitter.com/04uz1T5Lyk
— CNN International (@cnni) March 21, 2018
The company has been subject to scrutiny and faced hurdles recently with misinformation and fake news on the platform. Concerns have been raised by government officials in the U.S and in the UK. The social tech giant is also facing questions from British lawmakers about the user data that was used for the Brexit campaign.
