A New Mexico Jury Finds Facebook Liable for Deceiving Users on Privacy

PBS NewsHour reports that a New Mexico jury found Facebook liable of deceiving users about its privacy protections. The trial centered on accusations that the company deceived users about a data breach stemming from a third-party personality quiz, one that harvested data from roughly 87 million profiles and sold it to the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to generate targeted ads. The liability finding is about the assurances, not the harvesting alone: the case turned on what users were told about how their information was protected, in a matter whose underlying facts are the quiz, the 87 million profiles and the sale to Cambridge Analytica.