Key facts
- New Mexico seeks $35B-$40B in penalties from Meta.
- A jury found Meta misled consumers about Facebook data privacy.
- The case originated from the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
- Jurors found 26 out of 29 statements by Meta misleading.
- The company committed over 43 million violations of New Mexico consumer protection laws.
- The judge will rule on the penalty amount later this month.
New Mexico is seeking between $35 billion and $40 billion in penalties from Meta Platforms after a jury found the company misled consumers about data privacy on Facebook. The request was made at a hearing on Thursday before Judge Francis Mathew, who will decide the final penalty amount.
The lawsuit, filed in 2021, stems from revelations related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where personal data from millions of Facebook users was harvested without consent. Jurors examined 29 statements made by Meta and its leadership, finding 26 of them misleading and concluding the company committed over 43 million violations of New Mexico's consumer protection laws.
Attorneys for New Mexico argued that a significant payment, representing about 20% of the possible penalties under state law, is necessary to impact the company's stock price while respecting constitutional due process. Meta's lawyers, however, called the state's request an "astronomical penalty" and urged the judge to cap penalties at $3.45 billion, asserting that the company does not sell user data and that New Mexico failed to prove consumers were actually misled.