New Mexico seeks $40 billion penalty against Meta in privacy case
The lawsuit was filed in 2021, accusing Meta of lying to users about their data privacy
The state of New Mexico is asking a judge to order Meta platforms to pay between $35-$40 billion in financial penalties in a privacy battle.
The call for penalties belongs to the verdict when on September 25, a jury found that Meta misled consumers regarding data privacy on Facebook, stemming from the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Jurors found 26 out of 29 examined statements to be misleading, resulting in over 43 million violations of New Mexico's consumer protection laws.
However, the amount of penalties fueled a clash between attorneys for Meta and New Mexico as Meta defended that penalties the state was seeking don’t align with the conduct and violate constitutional provisions.
At the hearing on Thursday, Matt Nicholson, a lawyer for Meta, called the state's request an "astronomical penalty that would obviously violate a host of constitutional provisions."
Hence, the company urged the judge to cap penalties to $3.45 billion stating that New Mexico failed to present evidence that any consumers were actually misled while emphasizing that Meta don;t sell user data.
On the other hand, Judge Francis Mathew, who oversaw the trial in Santa Fe, said, "Well, when the parties go to trial, they roll the dice. They have to accept the consequences of their decision to go to trial, do they not?"
Under the state law, the judge could fine Meta up to $5,000 per violation. The state's requested amount represents about 20% of the maximum possible statutory penalties to comply with constitutional due process protections.
The judge will decide the amount and issue the ruling later this month.
The lawsuit was filed in 2021, accusing Meta of lying to users about who had access to their personal data, how it handled hate speech and misinformation, and its internal policies, knowingly tolerating harmful content to benefit its bottom line.
