Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Meta Fined $90M over Facebook Tracking Users' Online Activity


Wed 16 Feb 2022 | 09:38 AM
Omnia Ahmed

Meta agreed to pay $90 million to settle a decade-old lawsuit over a practice that allowed the social network to track users' activity across the internet.

If the fine approved, the agreement will also rank among the 10 largest data privacy class action settlements in the United States, according to DiCello Levitt Gutzler, one of the law firms involved in bringing the case.

"Reaching a settlement in this case, which is more than a decade old, is in the best interest of our community and our shareholders and we're glad to move past this issue," Meta spokesperson Drew Pusateri said in a statement to CNN Business. The company has denied any wrongdoing as part of the deal.

The case, filed in 2012, dates back to a 2010 update by Facebook called "Open Graph," which was designed to give users' friends a closer look at their activity and interests across the internet.

In the latest updates, the company launched a "Like" button plug-in feature on sites across the internet, which users could hit to highlight their interests to their Facebook networks.

Meta agreed to delete the user data it collected through this practice, according to the agreement.

"It's truly a wake-up call for internet and advertising companies who collect user data and use advanced browser tracking," Stephen Grygiel, one of the lead attorneys representing the class members, said in a statement about the settlement.