FACEBOOK users could be paid around £50 each if the tech giant loses a legal battle over claims it exploited people’s data.
Mark Zuckerberg’s tech empire Meta could be forced to cough up £2.3billion in damages for 44million UK Facebook users.
The payment would apply to anyone who used the site at least once between 2015 and 2019.
Law expert Dr Liza Lovdahl Gormsen is leading the case, claiming the firm’s terms and conditions are “unfair”.
She argues the company abused its dominance, leaving Brits with no choice but to accept its terms.
This allowed Facebook to make billions from user data while they got nothing of monetary value in return, it’s alleged.
The academic is taking it up with the Competition Appeal Tribunal.
“In the 17 years since it was created, Facebook became the sole social network in the UK where you could be sure to connect with friends and family in one place,” she said.
“Yet there was a dark side to Facebook – it abused its market dominance to impose unfair terms and conditions on ordinary Britons, giving it the power to exploit their personal data.
“I’m launching this case to secure billions of pounds of damages for the 44million Britons who had their data exploited by Facebook.”
Her claim is the first of its kind against Meta in the UK.
Facebook is alleged to have collected data both within its own platform and outside, using an advertising tool that allows other websites to monitor how users act on their site.
Meta responded, saying: “People access our service for free.
“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.
“We have invested heavily to create tools that allow them to do so.”
In other news, personalised smart guns, which can be fired only by verified users, may finally become available to U.S. consumers this year.
Tech giant Microsoft is trying to make the world more woke by rolling out an “inclusiveness” checker in its Word software.
And a federal anti-trust case against Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, has been given the go-ahead.
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