Meta lost a major privacy trial on Friday, with a jury in San Francisco ruling that the Menlo Park giant had eavesdropped on the users of the popular period-tracking app Flo. The plaintiff’s lawyers who sued Meta are calling this a “landmark” victory — the tech company contends that the jury got it all wrong.
The case goes back to 2021, when eight women sued Flo and a group of other tech companies, including Google and Facebook, now known as Meta. The stakes were extremely personal. Flo asked users about their sex lives, mental health and diets, and guided them through menstruation and pregnancy. Then, the women alleged, Flo shared pieces of that data with other companies. The claims were largely based on a 2019 Wall Street Journal story and a 2021 Federal Trade Commission investigation.
Google, Flo and the analytics company Flurry, which was also part of the lawsuit, reached settlements with the plaintiffs, as is common in class action lawsuits about tech privacy. But Meta stuck it out through the entire trial and lost.
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Their complaint also pointed to Facebook’s terms for its business tools, which said the company used so-called “event data” to personalize ads and content.
In a 2022 filing, the tech giant admitted that Flo used Facebook’s kit during this period and that the app sent data connected to “App Events.” But Meta denied receiving intimate information about users’ health.
Nonetheless, the jury ruled against Meta. Along with the eavesdropping decision, the group determined that Flo’s users had a reasonable expectation they weren’t being overheard or recorded, as well as ruling that Meta didn’t have consent to eavesdrop or record. The unanimous verdict was that the massive company violated the California Invasion of Privacy Act.
The jury’s ruling could have far-reaching effects. Per a June filing about the case’s class action status, more than 3.7 million people in the United States registered for Flo between November 2016 and February 2019. Those potential claimants are expected to be updated via email and on a case website; it’s not yet clear what the remittance from the trial or settlements might be.
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Source: Meta eavesdropped on period-tracker app’s users, SF jury rules
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