Up to 44 million UK Facebook users could share \u00a32.3bn in damages, according to a competition expert intending to sue parent company Meta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr Liza Lovdahl Gormsen alleges Meta “abused its market dominance” to set an “unfair price” for free use of Facebook – UK users’ personal data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She intends to bring the case to the Competition Appeal Tribunal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Meta representative said users had “meaningful control” of what information they shared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘Excessive profits’
\nFacebook “abused its market dominance to impose unfair terms and conditions on ordinary Britons, giving it the power to exploit their personal data”, Dr Lovdahl Gormsen says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And this data, harvested between 2015 and 2019, provided a highly detailed picture of their internet use, helping the company make “excessive profits”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyone living in the UK who used Facebook at least once during the period will be part of the claim unless they choose to opt out, she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, in November, the UK’s Supreme Court rejected an optout claim seeking billions of pounds in damages from Google over alleged illegal tracking of millions of iPhones – Google said the issue had been addressed a decade ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Free services
\nThe judge in that case said the claimant had failed to prove damage had been caused to each individual by the data collection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But he did not rule out the possibility of future mass-action cases if damages could be calculated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And Dr Lovdahl Gormsen told BBC News: “Optout cases are specifically permitted at the Competition Appeal Tribunal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“As a result, my case is able to claim damages on behalf of the 44 million British Facebook users affected.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meta has rejected the allegations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People use its free services because they find them useful and have control over how their data us used, it says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘Deliver value’
\nA representative told BBC News: “People access our service for free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“They choose our services because we deliver value for them and they have meaningful control of what information they share on Meta’s platforms and who with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We have invested heavily to create tools that allow them to do so.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, this latest case adds to the company’s legal battles<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The US Federal Trade Commission was recently given the go-ahead to take Meta to court over anti-trust rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meta said it was sure it would prevail in court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Up to 44 million UK Facebook users could share \u00a32.3bn in damages, according to a competition expert intending to sue parent company Meta. Dr Liza Lovdahl Gormsen alleges Meta “abused its market dominance” to set an “unfair price” for free use of Facebook – UK users’ personal data. She intends to bring the case to … Continue reading “Meta faces billion-pound class-action case”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3678"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3679,"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3678\/revisions\/3679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tech-battery.com\/batteriesblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}