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Zuckerberg to Add to Facebook Privacy Suite


WASHINGTON — The Attorney General of the District of Columbia plans to involve Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a consumer protection lawsuit in one of the first efforts by a regulator to personally expose him to potential financial and other penalties.

Attorney General Karl Racine said on Tuesday that the ongoing negotiations for the case and reviews of internal documents reveal that Mr. Zuckerberg played a much more active role in key decisions than prosecutors knew.

NS complaint against facebook It was filed in the Supreme Court for the District of Columbia in December 2018. The lawsuit alleges Facebook misled consumers about privacy on the platform by allowing Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm, to obtain sensitive data from more than 87 million users, including more than half of the residents.

Facebook asked a judge to dismiss the case, saying the company never misled consumers. In June 2019, Judge Fern Flanagan Saddler rejected the motion and initiated a lengthy discovery process that included interviews with current and former employees, reviews of Mr. Zuckerberg’s testimony to Congress, and interviews with law enforcement officials.

Mr Racine said the investigation showed that a major product change in 2010 that gave hundreds of third-party developers free access to Facebook’s user data was a “brain” of Mr. Zuckerberg. Among these third parties was an academic who transferred Facebook data to Cambridge Analytica.

“Under these circumstances, adding Mr Zuckerberg to our cause is arguably warranted and should send a message that company leaders, including the CEO, will be held accountable for their actions,” Mr Racine said in a statement.

Facebook could file a lawsuit to reject the attorney general’s amendment to include Mr. Zuckerberg as a defendant. The company vehemently opposed the complaint, with antitrust lawsuits filed by the Federal Trade Commission and nearly every state and District of Columbia.

Facebook lawyers have been particularly acrimonious about attempts to name Mr. Zuckerberg in previous regulatory actions. In 2011 and 2019, his lobbyists and lawyers opposed the FTC’s attempts to name him a defendant in privacy lawsuits. The company managed to keep its CEO out of a $5 billion deal with the FTC in 2019.

As a defendant, Mr. Zuckerberg could be subject to financial penalties. Mr Racine can demand up to $5,000 for any of the area’s 300,000 residents who may have been affected by the Cambridge Analytica data privacy breach.



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