Meta faces UK lawsuit over allegations of exploitation
The £2.3 billion legal claim has been filed on behalf of the platform's 44 million users in the UK
A British legal expert has launched a £2.3 billion class action lawsuit against Facebook's parent firm Meta, over allegations that the company abused its market dominance to generate billions of dollars in revenue from consumers' data, without compensation.
Dr Liza Lovdahl Gormsen, a Senior Research Fellow at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL), said she was bringing the legal claim on behalf of 44 million users in the UK who had used Facebook between 2015 and 2019.
The lawsuit, registered at the Competition Appeal Tribunal in London, alleges that Facebook has exploited its UK users by imposing unfair terms and conditions (required when signing up to the social media platform), and collecting their personal data without adequate compensation. The lawsuit claims that those T&Cs and data collection constitute an 'unfair price' for UK users to access to the service, under the 1998 Competition Act.
The lawsuit has been filed as an opt-out class action, meaning that Facebook users covered by it are automatically bound to the case unless they choose to opt out.
"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," Dr Lovdahl Gormsen 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."
Meta makes 98 per cent of its revenue from advertisers, who can target specific consumers and demographics using profiles that Meta creates by tracking users' online activities.
Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, the legal firm representing Lovdahl Gormsen, has notified Meta of the claim. A judge will now hear the claim and decide whether the case should proceed. If it is allowed it do so, it might take anywhere between six and 12 months to complete.
In a statement to The Guardian, a Meta spokesperson said that people use the company's services because of their value. The spokesperson added that users have meaningful control over the personal data they want to share on Meta's platforms, and with whom.
"We have invested heavily to create tools that allow them to do so," the spokesperson added.
The case is latest in a series of legal challenges that Meta faces in different countries.
In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently received permission to take the company to court over anti-trust rules.
Last month, Rohingya refugees from Myanmar sued the company over allegations that the platform ignored inflammatory posts and hate speech against the ethnic group, leading to the genocide of its members in the south-east Asian country.
Lawyers for victims of the 2017 massacres and displacements launched the coordinated legal action against the social media giant in the UK and the United States. They are seeking more than £150 billion in compensation, making it one of the largest group claims for victims of a crime against humanity.
In February 2021, a journalist filed a mass lawsuit against Facebook with the High Court in London, for its alleged failure to prevent third parties from accessing the data of about a million users in England and Wales.
Peter Jukes claimed that his data was compromised between November 2013 and May 2015, when Facebook allowed third-party app 'This Is Your Digital Life' to access millions of users' data without their consent or prior knowledge.
In March, Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières, or RSF) filed a lawsuit against Facebook in France for allegedly allowing the proliferation of disinformation and hate speech.
The global media watchdog alleged that the social media firm had failed to provide a 'safe' online environment for users.