California takes Facebook to court in state’s privacy, Cambridge Analytica investigation
Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced on Wednesday that he’s seeking a court order to force Facebook to turn over records his office requested in June.
The records are related to Facebook’s business practices, including its relationship to Cambridge Analytica, the political consulting firm affiliated with President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign that obtained data related to tens of millions of Facebook customers.
Becerra at a news conference in San Francisco said Facebook was not “fully responsive” to the state’s investigation into Cambridge Analytica. The state filed a petition in San Francisco Superior Court seeking to force the social media giant to comply with outstanding subpoenas.
“They have also failed to provide, or even search for, responsive documents among the emails of the company’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, and its chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg,” Becerra said.
The Federal Trade Commission in June hit Facebook with a $5 billion penalty following a yearlong investigation in the Cambridge Analytica data breach, finding that Facebook deceived users about their ability to protect their privacy.
Since then, 47 state attorneys general joined an anti-trust investigation into Facebook. Becerra is not one of them.
Becerra also has not joined a separate state-led anti-trust investigation into Google.
He’s faced questions about why he hasn’t joined the high-profile cases, and said he would not comment on potential investigations.
“No one except California and the A.G.’s office knows what, if anything, we’re doing with regard to either of those two or any other company in the internet space,” Becerra told The New York Times last week.
Becerra at the news conference declined to comment on any ongoing investigations into Facebook.
“We’re not here to discuss what we’re doing, we’re here to simply announce what we’ve done,” he said.
This story was originally published November 6, 2019 at 12:30 PM with the headline "California takes Facebook to court in state’s privacy, Cambridge Analytica investigation."
