Meta Inc Corporation is the parent company of Facebook. According to various reports, this company has agreed to reach a settlement of a lawsuit which deals with invading the privacy of users. Read the entire article to learn more about it.
Lawsuit Settlement
It has come to notice that Meta Corporation has agreed to a settlement of $37.5 million of a lawsuit which reportedly deals with violation of privacy. This lawsuit accused the parent of having violated the user’s privacy by tracking their locations without their consent. This settlement was filed in the San Francisco high court and is yet to be approved by the judge. This settlement is said to have resolved claims of Facebook having violated Californian law and its privacy policy by collecting information from users who turned off their location.
User’s reactions
The users claimed that they were not willing to share their location with Facebook. Irrespective of that, Facebook figured out their location by using IP addresses. This information was used by them for target advertising. Target advertising is the practice of focusing on the particular interests and preferences of the consumers by keeping a track of their online activities. In the year 2018, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook issued a statement saying that the company tracks the location of the users so that advertisers are able to reach their consumers in their respective locations. He added that if people are dining in a particular restaurant, they might receive notifications regarding their friends or people they might have dined with, at the same restaurant. They might also receive advertisements from various companies that offer their services near to that place.
The statement issued by U.S. Attorney
It has been reported that Damian Williams, a U.S. attorney said that when a company makes and deploys its own technology that bars users from housing opportunities, it violated the Fair Housing Act which is similar to when companies take part in discriminatory advertising by using conventional advertising methods. This lawsuit is the reason for Meta corporation to change its ad delivery system and work on its algorithm discrimination. In case Meta corporation does not succeed in doing so, the court will go forward with the litigation process.
About the lawsuit
Source: Arab News
According to various sources, this case was one of the most unique cases as it had a challenging algorithm bias. A paper published by Carnegie Mellon in 2020 also stated that the ads published by Facebook highlighted socioeconomic inequalities.