Meta, the parent company for Facebook, is being sued for £2.3 billion ($3.2 billion) in a class action lawsuit in the United Kingdom for allegedly exploiting user data.
The senior adviser to British watchdog group Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Liza Lovdahl Gormsen, is suing Meta on behalf of people who used Facebook in the U.K. between 2015 to 2019 for allegedly making users give personal data in order to get on the platform and earning billions of dollars from the tactic, Reuters reported.
“In the 17 years since it was created, Facebook became the sole social network in the UK where you could be sure to connect with friends and family in one place,” Lovdahl Gormsen said.
“Yet, there was a dark side to Facebook; it abused its market dominance to impose unfair terms and conditions on ordinary Britons, giving it the power to exploit their personal data,” Lovdahl Gormsen added.
Lovdahl Gormsen contends Facebook’s data collection allowed them to create vast data profiles on users.
Facebook said in a statement that consumers “have meaningful control of what information they share on Meta’s platforms and who with.”
London’s Competition Appeal Tribunal will hear the case, with the firm representing Lovdahl Gormsen, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, notifying Meta of the lawsuit, according to Reuters.
The lawsuit comes as a judge denied Facebook’s request to throw out a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit against the company in the U.S. this week.