News about fines

A New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $25 billion after a jury found the company misled consumers about the privacy of their data a decade ago. Judge Francis Mathew said Facebook's wrongdoing, which lasted for years, went to the heart of its core business practices. New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez said the ruling could be the largest verdict by a single state against the company. Meta shares still rose 1.77% to above $706.5 in the afternoon ET, and the company is likely to appeal. The case is tied to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which data from close to 90 million Facebook users was harvested without consent through a third-party app.

A Santa Fe district judge ordered Meta Platforms to pay New Mexico $25 billion after a jury found the company made false statements in violation of the state's Unfair Practices Act. The jury found 43.9 million violations, with 26 of 29 statements deemed false or deceptive, affecting nearly 1.4 million New Mexico Facebook users. Judge Francis Mathew wrote that Meta 'willfully and intentionally' misled the public, including through statements by CEO Mark Zuckerberg and former COO Sheryl Sandberg. Attorney General Raúl Torrez called it one of the largest financial penalties against a corporation in U.S. history. The case stems from a 2021 lawsuit over the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.

A New Mexico state judge ordered Meta Platforms to pay $25 billion for deceiving users about data privacy and content moderation following the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The ruling follows a September jury trial in which jurors found more than 43 million separate violations of state consumer protection laws. New Mexico was the only state to take the case to a full jury trial, declining to join an $18 billion multi-state settlement that 48 other states signed in August. Meta said it plans to challenge the decision, arguing state consumer laws should not apply to New Mexico residents who were not active users during the relevant period. State leaders said all proceeds will go to a dedicated public education fund.