Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:FB), the parent company of Facebook, is being sued in the UK for £2.3bn in damages by a competition law hotshot.
Dr Liza Lovdahl Gormsen, the director of the Competition Law Forum at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, launched a class action against Meta claiming it abused its market dominance to impose unfair terms and conditions on users - enabling it to exploit their personal data.
I am launching a major class-action claim against Meta for abusing its market dominance for a minimum of £2.3 billion damages on behalf of affected UK Facebook users. For more information see https://t.co/q4MGHdtEkT
— Liza Lovdahl Gormsen (@LizaGormsen) January 14, 2022
“By exploiting users’ data, both within the Facebook platform and off-platform through mechanisms like the Facebook Pixel, the company was able to build very detailed pictures of users’ internet usage. By using deep data profiles of its users, the company generated excessive profits,” Gormsen claimed on the www.facebookclaim.co.uk website.
According to the website, as many as 44mln UK Facebook users may have been subject to what Gormsen characterises as abuse.
The class action asserts Facebook imposes terms and conditions on a “take it or leave basis” to gain access to its social network in exchange for users' highly valuable personal data while offering zero monetary recompense to the users.
As the maxim has it, if you are not paying for the product, you are the product.
#privacy is a right. If you don't pay for a service then YOU are the product and property being sold.#xvg #btc #vergefam #Vergecurrency #xvgx
— HUM - XVG - ????- ₿ (@xvghum) January 12, 2022
In the UK, competition laws exist to prevent corporations in positions of market dominance from abusing their power through the exploitation of their customers.
The class-action suit will argue that while access to Facebook is ostensibly free to its UK users, the “price” set for gaining access to the social network was the surrender of UK users’ highly valuable personal data on a take it or leave it basis for using the network.
"In a free and fair market, competition should lead to lower prices and increased quality but the bigger a company is in the market, the less choice we have, no matter what else they’re doing. Facebook has exploited its dominance at its users’ cost," said Gormsen.