WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Meta Platforms Inc. (FB), the parent company of social media giant Facebook, has agreed to pay $90 million to settle a 2012 lawsuit that accuses the company of tracking users even after they logged out of their accounts.
A preliminary settlement proposal was filed on Monday night with the U.S. District Court in San Jose, California. It requires approval from the federal judge. Plaintiffs affected by Facebook's improper data tracking will receive portions of the $90 million. Meta will also delete all of the data it wrongfully collected from those users.
The lawsuit was filed after it was found that Facebook tracked users even after they completely logged off the social network. Users, usually agree to being tracked while they are logged into Facebook, however, the tracking was supposed to end upon logout, according to the end-user licensing agreement.
If the settlement is approved, it would be one of the 10 largest penalties ever paid in the US for violating user privacy.
'Plaintiffs calculate that the Settlement Fund represents disgorgement of at least 100% of the additional net profits during the Settlement Class Period related to the data the Lead Plaintiffs alleged was wrongfully obtained,' the statement from the law firm of DiCello Levitt Gutzler reads.
The case was dismissed in June 2017, but was revived in April 2020 by a federal appeals court, which said users could try to prove that Facebook profited unjustly and violated their privacy. Facebook's further effort to get the case dismissed by the U.S. Supreme Court was unsuccessful.
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