A Meta antitrust lawsuit will hit the firm in Britain after claims 44 million users had data misused over a four-year period.

Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) adviser Liza Lovdahl Gormsen said she is looking to sue the company for £2.3 billion on behalf of millions of UK users who used the platform between 2015 and 2019.

The Meta antitrust lawsuit was lodged against the company yesterday with the Britain’s Competition Appeal Tribunal in London.

According to reporting from Reuters, the company allegedly asked users to give personal data in order to access the platform and abused its dominance over the market.

Despite gaining access to the social network for ‘free’, there was a silent price of UK users unknowingly providing access to highly valuable personal data while Facebook generated billions in revenues.

Facebook supposedly not only locked users and their data into its platform, the firm was also tracking them through other means, building a detailed data map on its customers.

In a statement, the tech giant claimed that Facebook users access services because it delivered value for them and “they have meaningful control of what information they share on Meta’s platforms and who with”.

Lovdahl Gormsen said to Reuters: “In the 17 years since it was created, Facebook became the sole social network in the UK where you could be sure to connect with friends and family in one place.

“Yet, there was a dark side to Facebook; it abused its market dominance to impose unfair terms and conditions on ordinary Britons, giving it the power to exploit their personal data,” Lovdahl Gormsen added.

Facebook said that consumers “have meaningful control of what information they share on Meta’s platforms and who with”.

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Earlier this week, Facebook was dealt another blow in the US after a judge ruled to dismiss a Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against the firm.

Meta Platforms failed in their request that the suit, in which the government asked the court to demand that Facebook sell Instagram and WhatsApp, be dismissed.

Last week, the company was also fined £50m alongside Google in France for breaching  data protection laws around cookie usage in the country . Facebook Ireland and the French arm of Google were fined for their non-compliance with French legislation.

Back in 2018, the European Commission demanded that Facebook provide more information about how it used consumer data or it wound face future sanctions.

The EU Justice Commissioner at the time, Vera Jourova, said that the social media giant had failed to act promptly following updates to its terms and conditions.

that protect both children and user privacy.

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