Courts Force Meta and Google to Change, and Pay Up

What BBN said about it

1. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorA New Mexico judge has ordered Meta to pay twenty-five billion dollars over misleading users about data privacy, CNN reports, and that's the cut-rate version.

2. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorFolks, the original penalty was two hundred nineteen billion dollars. The judge knocked it down to twenty-five. That's what they call mercy.

3. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorPoint one. A jury found Meta broke New Mexico's consumer protection laws forty-three million times, at up to five thousand dollars each. Forty-three million times.

4. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorThink about that.

5. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorPoint two. New Mexico sued in twenty twenty-one over statements that user data was never sold or shared with third parties, though it was.

6. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorThat's the whole case. You said you didn't sell it, you sold it, and a jury got out a calculator.

7. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorPoint three.

8. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorMeta's chief legal officer says the ruling seeks, quote, to impose a tax on speech to enforce new rules for what people can say online.

9. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorA tax on speech? Really? The speech in question was a promise that your data wasn't for sale. Sounds like a bill for breaking that promise.

10. 

    Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorAnd this follows an August deal to pay up to seventeen point one billion dollars to forty-seven states and change how kids use its platforms.

11. 

    Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorMeta says it'll win on appeal.

12. 

    Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorThe company also says this ruling makes it all but impossible to do business in New Mexico. Funny.

13. 

    Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorFor years New Mexico's data was doing plenty of business with Meta, and nobody checked the receipt.