Meta hit with $25 billion penalty for lying to users about privacy

A New Mexico judge has imposed a staggering $25 billion penalty on Meta, following a lawsuit concerning the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The verdict, handed down on Wednesday, came after a two-week trial in September. The court found Meta liable for 43 million breaches of New Mexico's consumer privacy laws, each punishable by up to $5,000, resulting in the unprecedented sum.

Judge Francis J. Mathew of the Santa Fe State District Court delivered the ruling. This penalty is in addition to approximately $950 million in damages awarded earlier in the year, when the judiciary determined Meta was accountable for harm inflicted on children. In 2026, the company reached a $17.1 billion settlement with 47 US states, Washington DC, and other territories.

New Mexico pursued this separate case independently, without involvement in the larger settlement. Meta, the parent company behind Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, reported profits of around $168.6 billion over the past year. The company's financial performance for the current quarter is expected to be released hours after this announcement.

Meta has not yet responded to inquiries from the New York Times, but will likely face questions during the earnings call. Facebook previously received a $5 billion fine from the Federal Trade Commission for similar issues. In 2018, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged the need to comprehend the incident and prevent future occurrences.

Four years later, the company's progress remains unclear. Around the same time, Apple's CEO Tim Cook criticized Meta's privacy transgressions, arguing that it signaled the end of companies being permitted to self-regulate entirely. "I think the best regulation is no regulation, is self-regulation," Cook stated when questioned about Facebook's practices.

However, Cook suggested that the situation has surpassed that point. In 2023, Meta agreed to a $725 million payout from a $725 million class-action settlement related to the privacy issue. The claim period for this settlement has long expired, and eligible US users who utilized Facebook between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022, received their compensation.