New Mexico Asks Judge to Hit Meta With Up to $40 Billion Penalty

New Mexico asked a state judge on Thursday to order Meta to pay $35 billion to $40 billion in civil penalties after a jury found the company misled Facebook users about data privacy, per Yahoo Finance via Reuters. A Santa Fe jury found on September 25 that Meta violated the state's Unfair Practices Act more than 43 million times, reviewing 29 company statements and finding 26 misleading. The case, filed in 2021, stems from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the political consulting firm obtained personal data from as many as 87 million Facebook users through a third-party app. New Mexico law allows up to $5,000 per violation. Meta called the request an "astronomical penalty" and urged the judge to cap it at $3.45 billion. Judge Francis Mathew is expected to rule later this month. At the top end, the fine would be the largest ever imposed on a US corporation.