Facebook parent company Meta reportedly asked a London court on Monday, local time, to block a class action lawsuit worth up to 3 billion pounds ($3.7 billion) that accuses the social media giant of abusing its dominant position to monetize users’ personal data.
The lawsuit concerns the interests of 45 million British Facebook users.
Legal scholar Liza Lovdahl Gormsen, who filed the lawsuit, says Facebook users are not being properly compensated for the value of the personal data they must provide to use the platform.
Her lawyers say users should be compensated for the economic value they would have received if Facebook had not dominated the local social networking market.
But Meta says the lawsuit is “completely without merit” and should not be allowed to proceed. Its lawyers say the damages claimed in the lawsuit ignore the “economic value” provided by Facebook.
Gormsen’s lawyers on Monday asked the Competition Appeal Tribunal to certify the case under the U.K.’s class action system, which is roughly equivalent to the U.S.’s class action system.
Whether a class action is granted will depend on whether the court finds that the individual cases can properly be dealt with together, rather than on their merits.
Ronit Kreisberger, an attorney representing Gormsen, told the court that “Meta’s data manipulation violates the ban on abusive conduct by lead companies.
Kreisberger argued, “There is no question that there is a reason for Meta to answer this question at trial.
But lawyers representing Meta say the lawsuit incorrectly assumes that any “excess profits” it may have made equate to the financial losses suffered by individual Facebook users.
Marie Demetriou said in court documents that this approach “completely fails to take into account the significant economic value of the services provided by Facebook.
At the very least, she said, Gormsen’s estimate of the total loss to potential claimants — £3 billion, including interest — was “grossly exaggerated.
