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If you (a user) can demonstrate actual harm done to you from the Cambridge Analytica scandal then you can sue too. But you were already giving your data freely
by parsimo2010 2y ago
If you (a user) can demonstrate actual harm done to you from the Cambridge Analytica scandal then you can sue too. But you were already giving your data freely to Facebook to sell you targeted ads, so you’re going to have an uphill battle in how getting targeted political ads from Cambridge derived analysis harmed you. Not in a sense like “the wrong person got elected so I was theoretically harmed” because I doubt you can make that work in court. But if maybe your wife saw the ads and thought you were voting for someone she didn’t like, then divorced you and took half of the company you founded, then maybe your argument has a chance (if you could prove it).
On the other hand, there was a way to attribute loss in stock price that happened when the news of the scandal broke. Investors have a clearer path to arguing that they were harmed, even though they are not guaranteed to win the case.
- Y-bar 2y agoTrue. Proving damages by externalities is very hard unfortunately. For example I remember a case where foresters around here tried to sue coal companies for the acidified rain which killed a lot of pines and saplings and cost them a lot of money. The courts denied any compensation because they should have known acid rain was a risk and they could not prove which sulphur compound molecules originated from which company. And I suppose courts would treat misuse of personal data the same.