According to a competition expert planning to sue parent company Meta, up to 44 million UK Facebook users might share £2.3 billion in damages.
Meta “abuses its market dominance,” according to Dr. Liza Lovdahl Gormsen, by charging an “unfair price” for the free use of Facebook – UK users’ data. She plans to file a complaint to the Competition Appeal Tribunal.
Users had “real control” over what information they supplied, according to a Meta spokesman. Dr. Lovdahl Gormsen claims that Facebook “abused its market dominance to force unjust terms and conditions on regular Britons, giving it the power to exploit their data.”
And this data, which was collected between 2015 and 2019, gave the corporation a very detailed picture of their internet usage, allowing them to make “excessive profits.”
Unless they choose to opt-out, everybody resident in the UK who used Facebook at least once during the period would be included in the claim, she says.
However, the UK’s Supreme Court rejected an opt-out claim demanding billions of pounds in damages from Google over alleged illegal tracking of millions of iPhones in November, claiming that the problem had been resolved a decade ago.
In that case, the judge ruled that the claimant had failed to show that the data gathering had caused harm to each individual. However, if damages could be assessed, he did not rule out the potential of future mass-action lawsuits.
“Opt-Out cases are particularly permitted in the Competition Appeal Tribunal,” Dr. Lovdahl Gormsen told BBC News. “As a result, my case can seek damages on behalf of the 44 million British Facebook users who were impacted.”
Meta refuted the charges. According to the company, people utilize its free services because they find them beneficial and because they have a choice over how their data is used.
The US Federal Trade Commission recently received permission to sue Meta for violating antitrust laws.
Meta stated that it was confident in its ability to win in court.