Deleting the Data: A Future Trend in Data Privacy Settlements?

Meta recently agreed to settle one of the longest-running data privacy lawsuits in the United States. The lawsuit challenged the company’s use of cookies to track users, including after they have logged out of their Facebook accounts. The significance of In re Facebook, Inc. Internet Tracking Litigation, however, is not so much the decade-long litigation in the Ninth Circuit as the proposed settlement, which would require Facebook to “sequester and delete” all user data that was allegedly collected unlawfully during the class period. This form of non-monetary relief seems unprecedented in private privacy class actions in the U.S. If approved, such relief could be adopted in future actions alleging unlawful data collection. In this article, we explore some of the corresponding implications.

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