New Mexico Seeks Up to $40 Billion in Privacy Penalties Against Meta
nashnova research
New Mexico asked a judge to impose $35–40 billion in fines on Meta after a jury found the company made over 43 million misleading statements about Facebook user-data privacy; Meta argues the cap should be $3.45 billion — a gap of more than tenfold — with a ruling expected this month.
Where did this lawsuit come from?
The case traces back to the Cambridge Analytica scandal — the British political consultancy harvested personal data from up to 87 million Facebook users through a third-party app, without their consent.
New Mexico sued in 2021, alleging Meta lied to users about its internal policies on data access, hate speech, and misinformation.
This means → the case is not about a data breach; it is about what the company told its users — a consumer-fraud claim.
What did the jury find?
On September 25, the jury reviewed 29 statements made by Meta and its executives and found 26 of them misleading.
That produced a count of more than 43 million violations. In plain terms = each misleading statement × the number of users it reached, stacked up to that figure.
New Mexico law allows up to $5,000 per violation, putting the theoretical maximum at roughly $215 billion.
How far apart are the two sides?
New Mexico's lead attorney Randi McGinn conceded that applying the full $5,000 cap would violate the Constitution's due-process clause. She proposed roughly 20% of the theoretical maximum — $35–40 billion — arguing it would be large enough to materially hit Meta's stock price without crossing constitutional limits.
Meta's attorney Matt Nicholson called the state's demand an "astronomical penalty" and asked the judge to cap fines at $3.45 billion, arguing Meta does not sell user data and the state failed to prove any consumer was actually misled.
How will the judge decide?
Presiding Judge Francis Mathew said: "When both sides chose a jury trial, they must accept the consequences of that decision."
The final amount is at Mathew's sole discretion, spanning $3.45 billion to $40 billion.
This means → at the high end, the fine would approach roughly one quarter of Meta's annual revenue; at the low end, the financial impact is comparatively contained. This is the single most consequential uncertainty to watch.
市场有风险，内容仅供研究参考，不构成投资建议。