14 Jan. 2022 in FINANCIAL
Ⓒ ANP/HH
LONDON (AFN/RTR) – Facebook is facing a mass claim in the United Kingdom that could amount to more than 2.3 billion pounds (2.8 billion euros). The lawyer Liza Lovdahl Gormsen is suing the American group on behalf of all Britons who used Facebook between 2015 and 2019. During that period, they had to agree to unfair terms of use that forced them to transfer personal data to the social media platform, Lovdahl Gormsen claims.
Ⓒ ANP/HH
Lovdahl Gormsen is filing a so-called 'opt-out mass claim'. In addition, you claim a claim on behalf of a predefined group that automatically participates in the case, unless they indicate that they do not want this. A special competition authority in London, the Competition Appeal Tribunal, will look into the case.
The lawyer obtained her doctorate on the subject of abuse of market power. She is also a key advisor to the UK financial regulator. According to Lovdahl Gormsen, Facebook made a lot of money thanks to all the data about its users collected through the social media platform and features like Facebook Pixel, which tracks many people's surfing behavior for personalized advertisements.
“In the 17 years since its creation, Facebook has become the only social network in the UK where you can keep in touch with friends and family in one place,” says Lovdahl Gormsen. “But there was also a dark side to Facebook. It abused its market dominance to impose unfair terms on ordinary Britons, allowing it to exploit their personal data.”
However, Facebook argues that its services became popular because they were of great value to UK consumers. In addition, users of the platform would have had control over what information they wanted to share with parent company Meta's platforms and with whom.
Facebook has also been sued in the Netherlands for handling users' private data. Last summer, the court in Amsterdam ruled that a lawsuit brought by the Consumers' Association and Data Privacy Foundation (DPS) could continue, despite objections from Facebook.
In 2017, privacy regulators in the Netherlands and France already ruled that Facebook had violated the national laws of those countries with the way it handled user data. The organizations then filed a collective lawsuit.
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