New Mexico Seeks Up to $40 Billion from Meta in Cambridge Analytica Case

New Mexico authorities have requested a judge to order Meta Platforms to pay between $35 billion and $40 billion in penalties following a jury's decision in a lawsuit stemming from the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The state originally filed the lawsuit against Meta in 2021, accusing it of misleading its users about its data privacy practices. Cambridge Analytica, a British political data firm, harvested information from over 50 million Facebook profiles without consent for political ad campaigns, according to Reuters.

In late September, a New Mexico jury sided with the state. Jurors ruled that Meta had violated New Mexico's Unfair Practices Act and had misled residents about their privacy, as well as on how the company handles misinformation. Under the jury's verdict, the state could ask for as much as $219 billion. The jurors had examined 29 statements the company had made on issues involving the case and found 26 of them misleading. Based on the number of Facebook users in New Mexico who were the audience of those statements, the jury found that Meta had committed 43 million violations of the state's consumer protection laws.

Randi McGinn, the state's attorney, wants the penalties Meta has to pay to be significant enough to have an impact on the company. She stated, "This court should speak to Meta in the only language it understands, which is money, and the value of its stock price." McGinn believes the amount she asked would hold up in the Court of Appeals even if Meta contests it. Meanwhile, Meta is asking the court to cap the penalties at $3.45 billion, arguing that New Mexico wasn't able to prove that any of its residents had actually been misled by its statements. The judge will issue a decision later this month.

What to watch: A judicial decision on the final penalty amount is expected later this month.

Editor's note: The article is accurate and captures all essential details from the source, including the specific figures and the legal context.