Tech giant Facebook is facing a $3.2 billion class lawsuit in the U.K. for allegedly abusing its market dominance by exploiting the personal data of its 44 million users.
Liza Lovdahl Gormsen, a senior adviser to the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and a competition law expert, filed the case on behalf of all Facebook users in the U.K. who used the social media platform between 2015 and 2019.
The class action, which is due to be heard in London’s Tribunal competition court, alleges that Facebook made billions by imposing unfair terms that required users to hand over valuable personal data to use the platform.
Facebook, which has now been renamed Meta, argued that people use its services because it gives them value and “they have meaningful control” over their information on meta platforms.
Lovdahl Gormsen accuses Facebook of collecting data within its platform and through other mechanisms such as Facebook Pixel, allowing the social media giant to create an “all-seeing picture” of Internet use and create valuable, deep user profiles.
Opt-out class actions, such as Lovdahl Gormsen’s, collect a defined group into a lawsuit automatically unless individuals were to opt-out.
For more information, read the original story in Reuters.