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The
justices heard arguments in November in Meta's bid to shut down
the lawsuit. On Friday, they decided that they were wrong to
take up the case in the first place.
The high court dismissed the company’s appeal, leaving in place
an appellate ruling allowing the case to go forward.
Investors allege that Meta did not fully disclose the risks that
Facebook users’ personal information would be misused by
Cambridge Analytica, a firm that supported Donald Trump ’s first
successful Republican presidential campaign in 2016.
Inadequacy of the disclosures led to two significant price drops
in the price of the company’s shares in 2018, after the public
learned about the extent of the privacy scandal, the investors
say.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone said the company was disappointed by
the court's action. “The plaintiff’s claims are baseless and we
will continue to defend ourselves as this case is considered by
the District Court,” Stone said in an emailed statement.
Meta already has paid a $5.1 billion fine and reached a $725
million privacy settlement with users.
Cambridge Analytica had ties to Trump political strategist Steve
Bannon. It had paid a Facebook app developer for access to the
personal information of about 87 million Facebook users. That
data was then used to target U.S. voters during the 2016
campaign.
The lawsuit is one of two high court cases involving
class-action lawsuits against tech companies. The justices also
are wrestling with whether to shut down a class action against
Nvidia. Investors say the company misled them about its
dependence on selling computer chips for the mining of volatile
cryptocurrency.
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