Meta Reaches $37+ Million Settlement After Being Accused Of Tracking Users' Location Without Consent

Meta has agreed to a massive $37.5 million settlement after it was served a class action lawsuit. The parent firm of Facebook was accused of violating the privacy of so many users by tracking their location history. And that too, without them providing any consent of opting in for the decision.

The recent update so far that we can confirm is that the payment plan still needs final approval from the federal court judge in San Francisco. And once that’s received, well, then we could see the case ending.

The plaintiffs that filed the lawsuit against Meta Inc claim the leading social media app didn’t think it was wrong for them to track users’ location history without taking consent. Moreover, users that had their location switched off were also targeted by the company which it felt was a serious violation and invasion of privacy.

This is also a huge violation of the law in California as well as the firm’s own policies for privacy, it continued.

As of now, we’ve got no news about Meta responding to any requests for comments. However, we did see the firm come forward and mention that just because they agreed to the settlement does not mean they’re guilty of doing any wrong.

Around two months back in the month of June, the firm was seen agreeing to a might $90 million settlement that came about after accusations arose about Facebook tracking users on several other websites. This was despite the fact that they had logged out of their Facebook accounts.

But wait, it doesn’t end there. During the earlier part of this year, Meta was forced to settle another major case for $650 million when its scans for facial recognition were accused of going against Illionois’ Privacy Act.

This particular lawsuit stems from 2018 when Meta was accused of taking account of users’ location without consent. This way, their IP address would be used to help bring about better or more targeted advertisements.

Facebook has mentioned in its policies from day one that it’s not interested in doing anything without taking user consent on board. But as you can imagine, it was as if the firm had bitten off more than it could chew because it was accused of doing the opposite.

It was also in 2018 that the firm’s CEO stated how the company used ‘shared location’ to assist advertisers in reaching their targeted audience.


H/T: Axios

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