Facebook user sues Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, hoping for a class-action case

A Facebook user has sued the social network and Cambridge Analytica, a data research firm that played a role in the election campaign of President Trump, alleging that her privacy was violated when information on about 50 million users was improperly disclosed.

Lauren Price of Maryland sued the companies in federal court in San Jose, where Facebook is based, on behalf of other U.S. Facebook users whose data Cambridge Analytica obtained.

The lawsuit is the latest development in a wave of backlash against Facebook over ways its platform was used to influence the 2016 election. Revelations about Cambridge Analytica’s access to Facebook users’ information follows controversies over the proliferation of “fake news” and Russian propaganda through the site.

“This case involves the absolute disregard with which defendants have chosen to treat plaintiff’s personal information,” lawyers for Price said in her complaint. “Facebook, for its part, knew this improper data aggregation was occurring and failed to stop it, or actively avoided discovering such knowledge in order to profess supposed ignorance.”

The law firms representing Price specialize in personal injury cases, including auto accidents, work injuries and defective medical products.

Price sued Tuesday, not long after another lawsuit was filed on behalf of Facebook investors seeking to recoup losses suffered when the social media giant’s stock price fell when reports on Cambridge Analytica’s activities broke.

Price’s lawsuit seeks damages for all U.S. Facebook users whose information was harvested without their authorization, and it asserts claims of negligence and violations of California’s unfair-competition laws.

A judge will decide whether the lawsuit will be certified as a class action.

Facebook said Friday that Aleksandr Kogan, a Soviet-born researcher, on his Facebook page asked other users to take a personality quiz that he claimed was for academic purposes. He collected data from about 270,000 quiz participants as well as all the friends in their social circles and turned the information over to Cambridge Analytica in violation of Facebook rules.

Cambridge Analytica said it deleted the data when it learned of the violation and denied on Saturday that it still had access to it. But Facebook said Friday it learned that the information wasn’t erased. In fact, the research firm used the data to create tools and techniques that were put to use in the 2016 election campaign, according to the New York Times.

Price, who has had a Facebook account for eight years, remembered that she was “frequently targeted” with political ads during the 2016 election, according to the complaint.

John Yanchunis, head of the consumer class-action practice at Morgan & Morgan and lead counsel in the lawsuit, said Price thought the messaging in the ad seemed designed to influence her vote for a candidate. He said she did not take the personality quiz designed by Kogan.

Facebook spokeswoman Genevieve Grdina declined to immediately comment on Price’s lawsuit.

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Times staff writer Samantha Masunaga contributed to this report.

UPDATES:

12:15 p.m.: This article was updated to include comment from John Yanchunis of Morgan & Morgan.

This article was originally published at 9:45 a.m.