{
  "id": 15932688,
  "title": "Gericht verurteilt Meta in New Mexico zu Milliardenstrafe",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/21/gericht-verurteilt-meta-in-new-mexico-zu-milliardenstrafe",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-10-21T18:15:25.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "NZZ Wirtschaft",
    "slug": "nzz-wirtschaft",
    "url": "https://www.nzz.ch/wirtschaft/facebook-mutterkonzern-meta-in-new-mexico-zu-milliardentrafe-verurteilt-ld.10040767"
  },
  "original_language": "de",
  "account": "A landmark $25 billion fine has been imposed on Meta, the parent company of Facebook, over a major data privacy scandal involving Cambridge Analytica. The tech giant has allegedly violated user privacy in thousands of cases. A district court in New Mexico ruled on Wednesday that Meta must pay the substantial penalty. Jurors found that users were misled regarding Facebook's data privacy and freedom of speech. Initially, Meta remained silent on the decision. However, the company may now address the ruling in a telephone call with investors on Wednesday. The massive sum is explained by the court assessing a fine of up to $5,000 per violation. The jury found 43 million violations. This marks Meta's latest setback in a series of legal battles. Earlier this August, the company was already sentenced to a fine of nearly $18 billion. The Cambridge Analytica scandal, which occurred in 2018, deeply damaged the public's trust in the Facebook corporation. The issue concerned the misuse of information from a seemingly harmless survey by a data researcher to create user profiles and share them with the analytics firm Cambridge Analytica. Even the team of then-candidate Donald Trump withdrew from the 2016 US presidential election in light of the scandal. Over 87 million user accounts were affected. The company paid around six billion dollars to the American government to halt investigations. Following the fallout, New Mexico filed a lawsuit in 2021, alleging additional violations regarding free speech on the platform, stemming from revelations during the investigation. A whistleblower report revealed that certain prominent accounts had secretly been exempted from platform rules.",
  "summary": "Es ist eine Strafe historischen Ausmasses für den Mutterkonzern von Facebook: Meta muss wegen des Datenschutzskandals um Cambridge Analytica 25 Milliarden Dollar zahlen. Der Konzern habe den Datenschutz seiner Nutzer verletzt – und das in Dutzenden Millionen von Fällen.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 2,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "Handelsblatt",
        "title": "Lawsuit: Russian court again fines RBI subsidiary millions",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/20/rechtsstreit-russisches-gericht-verurteilt-rbi-tochter-erneut-zu",
        "published": "2026-10-20T14:54:19.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}