Maryland Woman Suing Facebook Over Personal Information Being Released
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- There is a new development in the Facebook data case.
A Maryland woman is now suing Facebook over the release of personal information that made her a target for political advertisements.
Marylander Lauren Price is taking Facebook to court with what she hopes will become a class action lawsuit over privacy data that ended up in the hands of political advertisers trying to influence votes.
It's a hefty piece of litigation, as Price is suing on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated.
All others are the 50 million Facebook users who had information they did not give, used to target them for ads they did not want about candidates to influence their vote.
"This was a major breach of trust and I'm really sorry that this happened," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said while on CNN.
But Zuckerberg's 'mea culpa' falls short, according to Price's lead attorney.
"Mr. Zuckerberg's statements [Wednesday] night on CNN were interesting, but they were more out of consequence than conscience," John Yanchunis said.
In 2013, a researcher designed a personality quiz and collected psychological data from Facebook users and some of their friends, blowing through privacy settings, and sold the information to Cambridge Analytica, which used it for targeted political advertising.
Facebook learned about it in 2015, and asked the company to delete the data and thought it had, but it had not.
The lawsuit also names Cambridge Anyalytica.
Yanchunis says his firm has heard from thousands.
"I think outrage is the polite word to describe how they are now feeling about a company who held itself out as being trustworthy but was not," he added.
The lawsuit is just part of the backlash over the ways Facebook was used in the 2016 election.
You do not have to be named in a class action lawsuit to benefit from the outcome.
A judge will decide if the lawsuit should go forward. It was filed in Facebook's home state of California.
There's been no immediate comment from Facebook on the lawsuit.
Facebook has announced it will investigate and audit apps and help users understand which apps are accessing data.
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