Meta ordered to pay $25 billion in New Mexico privacy case

Meta has been ordered to pay $25 billion in a New Mexico consumer protection case arising from allegations that Cambridge Analytica obtained Facebook users’ personal information without consent for political profiling linked to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, India Today reported on October 21, with inputs from Reuters.

Judge Francis Mathew imposed the penalty after a jury found that Meta had misled consumers about its data privacy practices and other policies. New Mexico Attorney General Ral Torrez described the outcome as one of the largest judgments secured by a single US state against a company.

Meta had argued for a ceiling of $3.45 billion, warning that a larger penalty could deter companies from doing business in New Mexico. It also maintained that it did not sell users’ data and that the state had failed to establish that any consumer was actually misled. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling.

How the jury findings led to the penalty

On September 25, jurors found that 26 of 29 statements by Meta and its leadership were misleading. They counted more than 43 million violations of New Mexico’s consumer protection laws, using the number of Facebook users or state residents exposed to each statement. That figure represents violations, not a count of distinct people whose data was taken.

Torrez said state law permits penalties of up to $5,000 for each violation, with proceeds directed to New Mexico’s school system. Mathew said a penalty exceeding $219 billion was warranted under state law, but reduced the award to $25 billion. His order characterised the conduct as prolonged and central to Facebook’s business practices.

At an October 1 hearing, state lawyer Randi McGinn had sought between $35 billion and $40 billion. She argued that this range reflected the jury’s findings while remaining consistent with constitutional due process protections. The final award was below the state’s request but well above Meta’s proposed cap.

The Cambridge Analytica connection

New Mexico sued Meta in 2021 after revelations that Cambridge Analytica had obtained information from as many as 87 million Facebook users through a third-party application. The now-defunct consultancy worked for Trump’s successful 2016 campaign, using personal information for voter profiling and targeting.

The alleged collection without consent took place through an app developed by a researcher permitted to operate it on Facebook. The state accused Meta of misleading users about access to their information, its treatment of hate speech and misinformation, and other internal policies.

The lawsuit also alleged that Meta knew outside parties had extensive access to user data and tolerated harmful content when it served the company’s commercial interests. Those allegations describe the state’s case; the reported jury findings concerned misleading statements and consumer protection violations.

Separate settlements and youth-safety litigation

The ruling comes alongside other substantial legal liabilities reported against Meta. Six other states settled Cambridge Analytica-related lawsuits for $459.2 million, as part of a broader $17.1 billion multistate agreement reached in August over claims involving harm to teenagers’ mental health. Those settlements are separate from the latest New Mexico judgment.

In another New Mexico case, a Santa Fe jury in March found that Meta had misled users about young people’s safety on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, and imposed $375 million in civil penalties. Following a second trial phase, a judge ordered another $567 million for a state teen mental-health fund, along with protective measures for teenage Facebook and Instagram users.

Gil Luria, head of technology research at D.A. Davidson & Co., assessed the latest judgment as expensive but predicted that Meta would appeal. He said the litigation was unlikely to materially affect the company’s value in the near term. That is an analyst’s assessment, not confirmation that an appeal has been filed.