Facebook will pay $15.86 billion in damages

Facebook has agreed to pay $1.86 billion to settle a 10-year-old privacy lawsuit. Facebook was accused of tracking users even after they logged out.

The agreement was filed in a California court on Monday and, if approved by a judge, would free Facebook from a series of lawsuits alleging invasion of Facebook users' privacy.

A Meta spokesman told AFP that it was in the best interests of our community and our shareholders to reach a settlement on the issue, which is more than a decade old, and that we were happy to move forward.

The lawsuit alleges that a major social media company tracked the activities of sites other than its users' websites for advertising. And sold users' browsing history to advertisers.

According to the court filing, this type of tracking is tantamount to assurances given by Facebook to its users.

The proposed settlement calls on Meta to pay $90 million into the fund and delete all data that was incorrectly collected.

It should be noted that this lawsuit was started in February 2012, after which Facebook has been facing other complaints of privacy.