Not big enough: A few weeks after a jury found Facebook liable in the Cambridge Analytica case, a judge in Santa Fe imposed an unprecedented fine on the parent company. Meta will, of course, appeal, while New Mexico’s attorney general insists that no Big Tech company is too powerful to be held accountable.
Santa Fe District Court Judge Francis J. Mathew recently fined Meta, Facebook’s parent company, $25 billion. The ruling follows a September jury verdict that found the social network deprived New Mexico residents of their privacy and their right to know how big tech companies use their personal data.
According to New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, the massive $25 billion civil penalty represents a “historic financial victory” for the state. New Mexico authorities sued Meta over the Cambridge Analytica scandal, one of the most significant privacy controversies in modern internet history. The British consulting company has long since gone bankrupt, but the consequences of the scandal continue to cause major legal problems for Meta.
A month ago, the jury found that Facebook had violated New Mexico’s consumer protection laws more than 43 million times. The company is alleged to have given third-party apps unlawful access to user data, mishandled hate speech, and knowingly profited from misinformation.
Torrez said Judge Mathew’s sentence shows that such violations could have serious financial consequences for companies. The Attorney General’s Office successfully prevailed against one of the largest corporations in the world, and the ruling underscores the principle that no company is too powerful to be held accountable before the law.
The size of the fine underscores the importance of state consumer protection laws as a way to hold tech companies accountable, Torrez’s office said. However, the financial consequences for Meta could have been even greater. The judge ruled that the company could have faced a fine of up to $219 billion under New Mexico law, while a local attorney had sought a fine of between $35 billion and $40 billion.
Meta had asked the court to limit the penalty to $3.45 billion. The judge ultimately imposed a penalty between the maximum allowed and the amount requested by Meta, although the judgment still represents significant financial damage to the company. Torrez said the result “reaffirms a fundamental principle: companies doing business in our state must obey our laws and respect the rights of our people.”
According to Gil Luria, an analyst at DA Davidson & Co., the New Mexico ruling comes with a heavy price tag, but Meta remains a company valued at nearly $2 trillion. Meta, whose business relies heavily on digital advertising, warned that the ruling could significantly impact its ability to operate in New Mexico. The company has announced that it will appeal the ruling.
