Meta agrees to pay $90 million to settle lawsuit over Facebook tracking users' online activity

Forum:

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Major facts:

The case, filed in 2012, dates back to a 2010 update by Facebook called "Open Graph". As part of the update, the company launched a "Like" button plug-in on sites across the internet, which allowed Facebook to gather data, using cookies, about users' activity on that site — including, for example, what sites they visit, items they viewed or purchased, and communications they had with that site — regardless of whether the user actually used the button or even knew it was there, according to court documents.

To alleviate privacy concerns, the company said at the time that it would not collect user-identifying cookies about a user's activity on partner websites while they were logged out of Facebook. However, researchers found that Facebook continued to collect some identifying cookies on users' internet activity even after they logged out of the platform, contrary to its promise.

Settlement:

1. $90 million will be distributed among plaintiffs who submit verified claims that they were affected by Facebook’s web tracking.
2. As part of the settlement, Meta agreed to delete the user data it collected through this practice.