The Record reported on Wednesday that a New Mexico court filing orders Meta to pay $25 billion over the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. In September, a jury found Meta broke the state's unfair practices law 43 million times. Each violation could carry a penalty of up to $5,000. The state was first awarded $220 billion, but Judge Francis Mathew cut it to $25 billion, according to the filing. Interest of 15% a year will be charged until the fine is paid. The case centres on Facebook sharing data of as many as 87 million users with Cambridge Analytica.
The Record says the case focused on what Facebook told users about its data practices. The judge wrote that Facebook kept making public promises about data control after staff had flagged that it could not keep them. Meta's chief legal officer, C.J. Mahoney, said the ruling makes it nearly impossible to do business in New Mexico. He also called the suit a tax on speech. Meta plans to appeal. The sources do not say when payment would be due, or when an appeal would be heard.
For teams that build or run software that handles personal data, the ruling ties a very large penalty to what a company tells users about its data practices. The Center for Democracy and Technology's Eric Null said companies must be accurate and clear about how they treat data.