Facebook later sold user data to commercial partners in direct violation of the consent order and removed disclosures from privacy settings that were required under consent order, the lawsuit alleges.
The first trial witness, privacy expert Neil Richards, testified Monday morning for the shareholders.
“Facebook’s privacy disclosures were misleading,” said Richards, a professor at Washington University Law School.
In later testimony, Jeffrey Zients, who served on Facebook’s board from 2018 to 2020, testified that consumer privacy and user data were priorities for both management and the board.
Nonetheless, he supported settling with the FTC as it investigated potential violations of the 2012 consent order, so the company could move forward.
“It was difficult because this was a lot of money, but I think it was better than the alternative,” Zients said.
Asked if the board considered making its founder a party to the settlement, he said Zuckerberg was “essential” to running the company.
And, Zients, who served in both the Obama and Biden administrations, said, “there was no indication that he had done anything wrong.”
