CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg seems to have successfully silenced a major issue plaguing the company. Zuckerberg and current and former directors and officers of Meta Platforms agreed on Thursday to settle claims seeking $8 billion for the damage they allegedly caused the company by allowing repeated violations of Facebook users’ privacy, a lawyer for the shareholders told a Delaware judge on Thursday.
Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook) has faced multiple major lawsuits and regulatory actions over privacy violations. Several of these cases have led to historic settlements that reflect the company’s repeated failures to protect user data.
The most recent and significant is the 2025 Delaware shareholder derivative lawsuit, which sought $8 billion in damages. Shareholders accused Zuckerberg and other top executives of breaching fiduciary duties by ignoring privacy violations that stemmed from the Cambridge Analytica scandal and violations of a 2012 FTC consent decree. The trial began in July 2025 but abruptly ended after a confidential settlement was reached, avoiding public testimony from Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and others.
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In 2019, Meta paid a $5 billion fine to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), marking one of the largest penalties ever imposed for privacy violations. This fine addressed Meta’s violation of its earlier agreement with the FTC to protect user data and came in the wake of revelations that personal information from 87 million users was improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica.
At the state level, Meta agreed to a $1.4 billion settlement with Texas in 2024 over the illegal collection of biometric data under the Texas Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier (CUBI) Act. The lawsuit alleged Meta used facial recognition features without user consent.
In 2020, the company also paid $650 million to settle a class-action lawsuit under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). That suit targeted Facebook’s use of face-tagging and facial recognition tools that collected and stored biometric data without informing users or obtaining written consent.
Shareholders of Meta sued Zuckerberg, Andreessen and other former company officials including former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg in hopes of holding them liable for billions of dollars in fines and legal costs the company paid in recent years.
“This settlement may bring relief to the parties involved, but it’s a missed opportunity for public accountability,” said Jason Kint, the head of Digital Content Next, a trade group for content providers.
“Facebook has successfully remade the ‘Cambridge Analytica’ scandal about a few bad actors rather than an unraveling of its entire business model of surveillance capitalism and the reciprocal, unbridled sharing of personal data,” Kint said. “That reckoning is now left unresolved.”
The $8 billion settlement in the shareholder lawsuit marks a critical turning point for Meta, reflecting the deep consequences of years of privacy missteps. While the resolution may spare Zuckerberg and other top executives from public testimony, it underscores the growing pressure on tech giants to be held accountable for how they handle user data. With billions already paid in fines and settlements, Meta’s privacy record remains under intense scrutiny. This case highlights the financial and reputational risks companies face when privacy protections are neglected. Though the settlement closes a major legal chapter, it leaves broader questions about Meta’s business practices and surveillance-driven model unresolved.
The lack of courtroom accountability may allow the company to move on, but public and regulatory expectations for transparency and responsible data use are only rising. Meta’s future will likely depend on whether it can rebuild trust while maintaining its data-driven business model under tighter oversight.