Meta Platforms Inc. has settled a long-running legal battle alleging Facebook illegally shared user data with research firm Cambridge Analytica. The preliminary settlement, which was filed in court late Friday, follows last month’s revelations that Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg will be questioned by plaintiffs’ attorneys for up to six hours.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Facebook users sued the company in 2018 after it was revealed that a British research firm related to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election had accessed the data of up to 87 million subscribers on the social media network.
Amid a bitter battle over pretrial information sharing, consumer advocates have used increasing force to infiltrate the company’s internal records and bolster their claims that Facebook failed to protect personal information.

Hundreds of millions of dollars could have been demanded if Facebook’s parent company lost the lawsuit.
Court filings last month showed that Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg was scheduled to testify. The testimony was to be given by September 20th.
In Friday’s filing, attorneys for both sides told the judge in charge of the case to put the case on hold to “expedite the process of entering into a written settlement agreement” and submit it to the court for a preliminary determination of approval. Mehta declined to comment on the settlement.
Facebook claimed to have disclosed its practices in its user agreement. It also said that anyone who shares information on social networks should not expect their privacy to be protected.