Facebook faces $3.2bn UK lawsuit over market dominance

Facebook faces a more than £2.3bn ($3.2bn) class action in the UK over allegations it abused its market dominance by exploiting the personal data of 44m of users.

Liza Lovdahl Gormsen, a senior adviser to the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority of Great Britain) and competition law scholar, said she opened the case on behalf of people in Britain who used Facebook between 2015 and 2019.

The suit alleges that Facebook made billions of pounds by imposing unfair terms and conditions that required consumers to hand over valuable personal data in exchange for accessing the social network.

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, the law firm representing Lovdahl Gormsen, notified Facebook of the complaint.

Facebook said people use its services because it adds value to them and “have significant control over what information they share on Meta’s platforms and with whom.”

The case comes days after Facebook lost an attempt to overturn an FTC antitrust lawsuit, one of the biggest challenges posed by the US government against a tech company in decades.

Lovdahl Gormsen alleges that Facebook collected data on its platform and through mechanisms such as the Facebook Pixel, allowing the company to build a “comprehensive picture” of Internet usage and enabling it to profile users’ valuable and in-depth data.

Exclusion class actions, such as the one proposed by Lovdahl Gormsen, automatically link a defined group to a lawsuit unless individuals choose not to participate in the case.