A court filing showed that Facebook has agreed in principle to settle a lawsuit in federal court in San Francisco seeking damages for allowing third parties, including Cambridge Analytica, to access private user data. Financial terms were not disclosed in the filing, which asked the judge to stay the class action for 60 days until lawyers for both plaintiffs and Facebook complete a written settlement.
The four-year-old lawsuit alleged that Facebook violated consumer privacy laws by sharing users’ personal data with third parties such as the now-defunct British political consultancy Cambridge Analytica. Facebook said its privacy practices are consistent with its disclosures and “do not support any legal claims.” Facebook and its attorneys from Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher did not immediately respond to a request for additional details regarding the settlement. Of the two law firms representing the plaintiffs, Keller Rohrback declined to comment, while Bleichmar Fonti & Auld declined to comment.
