Meta ordered to pay $25 billion to New Mexico after jury finds company misled consumers about data privacy

A judge in New Mexico ordered Meta Platforms to pay $25 billion on Wednesday after a jury found the company had misled consumers in a case arising from allegations that a political consulting firm involved in Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign obtained data from ‌millions of Facebook users without their consent.

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said it was one of the largest, if not the largest, single state verdict against the company in American history.

"Facebook's wrongdoing — over the course of years and systematically broadcast to the public — goes to the heart of Facebook's core business practices," Judge Francis Mathew wrote in his order following the verdict.

Mathew found that a penalty of more than $219 billion was warranted, based on state law, but he reduced the figure to $25 billion.

A spokesperson for Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company had previously said a penalty in the billions of dollars risked violating its constitutional rights to due process and protection from excessive fines.

The penalty is the largest levied against the tech giant in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. In 2019, the company was hit with a $5…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/business