Meta has chosen the easy way out.
The social media giant has recently agreed to settle with the plaintiffs of the lawsuit connected to the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg were previously in line to give hours of deposition as part of the proceedings.
Meta Settlement Agreement Details
Meta mentioned in the court document it submitted to a US District Court of the Northern District of California that it had reached a settlement agreement that could "facilitate the process of finalizing a written settlement agreement."
As such, the company and the plaintiff requested from the court a stay of action for 60 days.
However, the court document did not reveal the specifics of Meta's settlement deal with the plaintiffs, such as the agreement's financial terms.
Facebook and its lawyers from Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher did not immediately comment to a request for more details about the settlement, per a Reuters report. Meanwhile, Keller Rohrback did not comment about the settlement, and Bleichmar Fonti & auld declined to give a statement on the matter.
Meta has also declined to give a statement via spokesperson about the settlement it made with the plaintiff's lawyers, per The Verge.
Meta, Facebook, and the Cambridge Analytica Privacy Scandal
The lawsuit, which was filed four years ago, is connected to the privacy scandal Meta and Facebook were involved in during the campaigning of former president Donald Trump.
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The Guardian reported in 2018 that Meta, then known as Facebook Inc., had collaborated with Trump's campaign team and had given them access to the personal information of 50 million Facebook users, which was used to profile voters.
Cambridge Analytica, a now-defunct British consultancy firm, was part of Trump's campaign team in 2018. Meta has also given users' personal information to other companies aside from Cambridge Analytica.
As such, the plaintiff filed a class action lawsuit against Meta and Facebook for violating consumer privacy laws.
However, Facebook argued that users suffered no "tangible" harm and that Cambridge Analytica and the companies it had given private information to had no legitimate privacy interest in information they shared with friends on social media, per a separate Reuters report.
A Facebook spokeswoman said the company believes that its practices were consistent with its disclosures and "do not support any legal claims" while also stating that it had considered protecting people's information and privacy "extremely important."
US District Judge Vince Chhabria has rejected Meta's arguments, saying that Meta's arguments were "littered with assumptions about the degree to which social medoa users can resasonably expect their personal information and communication to remain private."
Had the settlement not gone through, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg would have to give hours of deposition as part of the class action lawsuit, with Zuckerberg deposing for six hours and Sandberg deposing for five hours.
Related Article: Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, Other Meta Execs Set to Give Depositions Over Cambridge Analytica Scandal
